In vitro acellular dissolution of mineral fibres: A comparative study.

The study of the mechanisms by which mineral fibres promote adverse effects in both animals and humans is a hot topic of multidisciplinary research with many aspects that still need to be elucidated. Besides length and diameter, a key parameter that determines the toxicity/pathogenicity of a fibre is biopersistence, one component of which is biodurability. In this paper, biodurability of mineral fibres of social and economic importance (chrysotile, amphibole asbestos and fibrous erionite) has been determined for the first time in a systematic comparative way from in vitro acellular dissolution experiments. Dissolution was possible using the Gamble solution as simulated lung fluid (pH = 4 and at body temperature) so to reproduce the macrophage phagolysosome environment. The investigated mineral fibres display very different dissolution rates. For a 0.25 µm thick fibre, the calculated dissolution time of chrysotile is in the range 94-177 days, very short if compared to that of amphibole fibres (49-245 years), and fibrous erionite (181 years). Diffraction and SEM data on the dissolution products evidence that chrysotile rapidly undergoes amorphization with the formation of a nanophasic silica-rich fibrous metastable pseudomorph as first dissolution step whereas amphibole asbestos and fibrous erionite show minor signs of dissolution even after 9-12 months.

New insights into the toxicity of mineral fibres: A combined in situ synchrotron µ-XRD and HR-TEM study of chrysotile, crocidolite, and erionite fibres found in the tissues of Sprague-Dawley rats.

Along the line of the recent research topic aimed at understanding the in vivo activity of mineral fibres and their mechanisms of toxicity, this work describes the morpho-chemical characteristics of the mineral fibres found in the tissues of Sprague-Dawley rats subjected to intraperitoneal/intrapleural injection of UICC chrysotile, UICC crocidolite and erionite-Na from Nevada (USA). The fibres are studied with in situ synchrotron powder diffraction and high resolution transmission electron microscopy to improve our understanding of the mechanisms of toxicity of these mineral fibres. In contact with the tissues of the rats, chrysotile fibres are prone to dissolve, with leaching of Mg and production of a silica rich relict. On the other hand, crocidolite and erionite-Na fibres are stable even for very long contact times within the tissues of the rats, showing just a thin dissolution amorphous halo. These findings support the model of a lower biopersistence of chrysotile with respect to crocidolite and erionite-Na but the formation of a silica-rich fibrous residue after the pseudo-amorphization of chrysotile may justify a higher cytotoxic potential and intense inflammatory activity of chrysotile in the short term in contact with the lung tissues.