Effect of cadmium on the expression levels of interleukin-1a and interleukin-10 cytokines in human lung cells

ODEWUMI, CAROLINE; LATINWO, LEKAN M.; SINCLAIR, ANDRE; BADISA, VEERA L.D.; ABDULLAH, AHKINYALA; BADISA, RAMESH B.

metallothionein compared with their corresponding normal cells (28) . This may be one of the contributing factors for the higher sensitivity of cancer cells to cadmium toxicity, however, further investigation is required to prove this hypothesis. Normal lung cells and the lung cancer cells revealed high expression levels of the IL-1α and IL-10 cytokines following treatment with CdCl 2 (Figs. 1 and 2) . In a previous study (29) , a significant increase in IL-1α and IL-10 cytokines was observed in the tested cells, when human-derived bronchial epithelium was exposed to tobacco smoke components. Furthermore, other previous studies have revealed that cells release pro-inflammatory cytokines during inflammation, to activate the cytokine network and the secretion of anti-inflammatory cytokines (30, 31) . The higher expression of cytokines, which lead to inflammation, may be responsible for the later cytotoxic effects in the cells, which lead to a decrease in viability, as observed in the present study (Fig. 1 ). This is supported by a previous study (32) demonstrating that high levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines due to cadmium exposure cause pathological conditions in a biological system.