Relative effective potencies of dioxin-like compounds in rodent and human lung cell models

Toxicity of dioxin-like compounds (DLCs), such as polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins, dibenzofurans and biphenyls, is largely mediated via aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) activation. AhR-mediated gene expression can be tissue-specific; however, the inducibility of AhR in the lungs, a major target of DLCs, remains poorly characterized. In this study, we developed relative effective potencies (REPs) for a series of DLCs in both rodent (MLE-12, RLE-6TN) and human (A549, BEAS-2B) lung and bronchial epithelial cell models, using expression of both canonical (CYP1A1, CYP1B1) and less well characterized (TIPARP, AHRR, ALDH3A1) AhR target genes. The use of rat, murine and human cell lines allowed us to determine both species-specific differences in sensitivity of responses to DLCs in lung cellular models and deviations from established WHO toxic equivalency factor values (TEF) values. Finally, expression of selected AhR target genes was determined in vivo, using lung tissues of female rats exposed to a single oral dose of DLCs and compared with the obtained in vitro data. All cell models were highly sensitive to DLCs, with murine MLE-12 cells being the most sensitive and human A549 cells being the least sensitive. Interestingly, we observed that four AhR target genes were more sensitive than CYP1A1 in lung cell models (CYP1B1, AHRR, TIPARP and/or ALDH3A1). We found some deviations, with strikingly low REPs for polychlorinated biphenyls PCBs 105, 167, 169 and 189 in rat RLE-6TN cells-derived REPs for a series of 20 DLCs evaluated in this study, as compared with WHO TEF values. For other DLCs, including PCBs 126, 118 and 156, REPs were generally in good accordance with WHO TEF values. This conclusion was supported by in vivo data obtained in rat lung tissue. However, we found that human lung REPs for 2,3,4,7,8-pentachlorodibenzofuran and PCB 126 were much lower than the respective rat lung REPs. Furthermore, PCBs 118 and 156 were almost inactive in these human cells. Our observations may have consequences for risk assessment. Given the differences observed between rat and human data sets, development of human-specific REP/TEFs, and the use of CYP1B1, AHRR, TIPARP and/or ALDH3A1 mRNA inducibility as sensitive endpoints, are recommended for assessment of relative effective potencies of DLCs.