Chronic exposure of pigs to airborne dust and endotoxins in an environmental chamber: technical note

A new experimental setup was developed to expose pigs to dust and airborne endotoxins in an environmental chamber, at levels liable to be encountered in pig farm buildings. The following parameters were evaluated in a chamber containing two pigs of 10 kg body-weight: inhalable and respirable dust gravimetric concentrations were measured using area samplers and expressed as mg/m3. The respirable dust concentration was also measured using a "TM digital microP respirable dust-measuring instrument', which has been shown to give similar results to the gravimetric method. The endotoxin concentration was evaluated using the Limulus-assay and expressed as ng/m3 of air containing the inhalable or respirable dust or as ng/mg of inhalable and respirable dust. Feed flour dust was introduced into the chamber to obtain different concentrations of inhalable and respirable dust ranging from 3.62 to 76.66 mg/m3 and from 0.24 to 1.40 mg/m3, respectively. The endotoxin concentration was modulated by mixing the feed flour with Escherichia coli endotoxins before blowing it into the chamber. The endotoxin concentrations in the air containing inhalable or respirable dust ranged from 28.9 to 270.0 ng/m3 and from 2.22 to 36.38 ng/m3, respectively, depending on the amount of endotoxins added to the dust. Data were also obtained in a piggery. The experimental setup detailed in this paper could be used to study the significance of air contaminants in the development of pig respiratory diseases.