Green Tobacco Sickness among Brazilian farm workers and genetic polymorphisms.

OBJECTIVE: Green Tobacco Sickness (GTS) is an occupational illness caused by dermal absorption of nicotine from tobacco leaves. It affects thousands of farm workers worldwide. Brazil is the second tobacco producer in the world; despite this, there are few studies on GTS among Brazilian harvesters. This study aimed to determine the prevalence of GTS among a population of tobacco workers from a producing area in northeastern Brazil and investigate whether the occurrence of the disease was influenced by factors such age, gender and smoking status. In addition, it was investigated if there was association between the onset of GTS and genetic polymorphisms in genes that encode some detoxification enzymes. A semi-structured questionnaire was used to collect demographic, behavioral and occupational data from the referred workers. Polymorphisms were tested through the Polymerase Chain Reaction technique. RESULTS: The total prevalence of GTS found was 56.9%, with a significant difference between genders (71.7% for women and 35.3% for men, p < 0.0001). No association was identified between the investigated polymorphisms and GTS. This study confirms the occurrence of GTS among tobacco harvesters in Brazil with high prevalence. The investigation suggests the need to take preventive measures to protect tobacco workers against this disease.

Effects of perillyl alcohol and heat shock treatment in gene expression of human lung adenocarcinoma cell line A549.

The K-Ras protein is found mutated in 42.4% of lung adenocarcinoma cases, evidencing its importance as a chemotherapeutic target. The Ras protein becomes functional after farnesylation, a post-transduction modification, allowing its attachment to the cellular membrane permitting signal transduction. Perillyl alcohol (POH) has been shown to inhibit the farnesylation of small G-proteins such as Ras. HSP70, a protein known to appear after heat shock (HS), is found over expressed in lung cancer and modifies chemotherapeutic effects. In this work, the effect of POH and HS in the gene expression of human adenocarcinoma lung cells (A549) is studied. Cells incubated with POH followed by 42 degrees C HS presented a 20.7% cellular viability decrease compared to the ones kept at 37 degrees C. A different pattern synthesis was observed for each sequences of cell treatment. Independent of the heat treatment, the amount of HSP70 was decrease by POH without modification in the amount of p53. Here it is shown that HS modified the POH effects in the ERK activation pathway by altering the phosphorylation of p44/42 in human adenocarcinoma lung cells.