A study on cellular reactions and fibrogenic effects of mineral dusts

In vivo cytotoxicity including cellular metabolic activity, lysozyme content and total protein content in rat bronchoalveolar lavage, capacity of interleukin-1 released from rat pulmonary cells and fibrogenic effects evaluated from rat lung dry weight, collagen content of the whole lung and pathological grading induced by mineral dust were assayed. The results showed that: (1) The relationship among in vivo cytotoxicity, interleukin-1 release, fibrogenic effects on the lung induced by mineral dusts correlated well with the free SiO2 content in mineral dusts in most (but not all) cases; (2) The biological harmful effects of mixed dusts were not simply the additive effect of single dust. In the group of WO3-SiO2 mixture, the fibrogenicity was mainly due to SiO2, tungsten trioxide (WO3) showed neither fibrogenic effect, nor significant potentiality to enhance SiO2 fibrogenicity, while in the group of SnO2-SiO2, SnO2 was suppressive to the effect of SiO2, although the contents of SiO2 in the two mixed dusts were similar.