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Molecular Biomarkers of Occupational Exposure: Where Are We Now?

A special issue of International Journal of Molecular Sciences (ISSN 1422-0067). This special issue belongs to the section "Molecular Biology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2024) | Viewed by 2109

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Clinical Unit of Occupational Medicine, Department of Medical Sciences, University of Trieste, Via della Pietà 2/2, 34100 Trieste, Italy
Interests: long COVID; occupational dermatitis; nanotoxicology; rural health; biohazard; occupational thermal factors

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

In recent decades, the nature of occupational exposures has changed so much that the biomarkers previously used are largely inappropriate for current scenarios. Long-term exposures to a single agent have given way to multiple low-dose exposures, and agents that once had only modest effects have emerged as new occupational risk factors, also taking into account the role of climate change. At the same time, the potential for profiling some new biomarkers has emerged in the context of exposure to hazardous chemicals, such as miRNAs, which have been proposed for exposure to VOCs and carcinogens, to name a few, while new skin biomarkers are finding their way into the assessment of exposure to UV light radiation.

This Special Issue discusses in more detail the new possibilities offered by recently discovered biomarkers and the appropriateness of their use in occupational medicine.

Original articles, recent reviews, and perspectives on this topic are welcome.

Dr. Marcella Mauro
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • occupational biomarkers
  • exposure assessment
  • low doses exposures
  • UV light exposure
  • chemical exposure
  • cancer biomarkers

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

18 pages, 5211 KiB  
Article
Computational Analyses Reveal Deregulated Clock Genes Associated with Breast Cancer Development in Night Shift Workers
by Silvia Vivarelli, Giovanna Spatari, Chiara Costa, Federica Giambò and Concettina Fenga
Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2024, 25(16), 8659; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms25168659 - 8 Aug 2024
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1781
Abstract
Breast cancer (BC) is the leading cause of cancer death among women worldwide. Women employed in shift jobs face heightened BC risk due to prolonged exposure to night shift work (NSW), classified as potentially carcinogenic by the International Agency for Research on Cancer [...] Read more.
Breast cancer (BC) is the leading cause of cancer death among women worldwide. Women employed in shift jobs face heightened BC risk due to prolonged exposure to night shift work (NSW), classified as potentially carcinogenic by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). This risk is linked to disruptions in circadian rhythms governed by clock genes at the cellular level. However, the molecular mechanisms are unclear. This study aimed to assess clock genes as potential BC biomarkers among women exposed to long-term NSW. Clock gene expression was analysed in paired BC and normal breast tissues within Nurses’ Health Studies I and II GEO datasets. Validation was performed on additional gene expression datasets from healthy night shift workers and women with varying BC susceptibility, as well as single-cell sequencing datasets. Post-transcriptional regulators of clock genes were identified through miRNA analyses. Significant alterations in clock gene expression in BC compared to normal tissues were found. BHLHE40, CIART, CLOCK, PDPK1, and TIMELESS were over-expressed, while HLF, NFIL3, NPAS3, PER1, PER3, SIM1, and TEF were under-expressed. The downregulation of PER1 and TEF and upregulation of CLOCK correlated with increased BC risk in healthy women. Also, twenty-six miRNAs, including miR-10a, miR-21, miR-107, and miR-34, were identified as potential post-transcriptional regulators influenced by NSW. In conclusion, a panel of clock genes and circadian miRNAs are suggested as BC susceptibility biomarkers among night shift workers, supporting implications for risk stratification and early detection strategies. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Molecular Biomarkers of Occupational Exposure: Where Are We Now?)
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