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Toenail Arsenic Concentrations, GSTT1 Gene Polymorphisms, and Arsenic Exposure from Drinking Water

¹ Harvard School of Public Health; ² Department of Environmental Health, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts; and ³ Dhaka Community Hospital, Dhaka, Bangladesh

Requests for reprints: Molly L. Kile, Harvard School of Public Health, Building 1, Room 1408, 677 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA 02115. Phone: 617-432-1890; Fax: 617-432-3441. E-mail: mkile{at}hsph.harvard.edu

Toenail arsenic (As) concentrations were evaluated as a biomarker of inorganic As (As_in) exposure in a population residing in an As-endemic region of Bangladesh. Drinking water and toenail samples were collected from 48 families (n = 223) every 3 months for 2 years and analyzed for As using inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry. Drinking water collected 3, 6, and 9 months before each toenail sample collection was combined into a weighted lagged exposure variable. The contribution of each water sample to the measured toenail As concentration was estimated using maximum likelihood that accounted for fluctuations in drinking water exposure and toenail growth. The best model attributed 69%, 14%, and 17% of the toenail As content to drinking water exposures that occurred 3, 6, and 9 months before toenail collection [95% confidence intervals (95% CI), 0.46-0.97, 0.00-0.31, and 0.03-0.35, respectively]. Generalized additive mixed models using penalized regression splines were employed to model the data. Below a drinking water concentration of 2 µg As/L, no relationship between drinking water As and toenail As concentrations was observed. Above this concentration, toenail As content increased in a dose-dependent fashion as drinking water As increased. Age was a significant effect modifier of drinking water As exposure on toenail As (ß = 0.01; 95% CI, 0.002-0.02). Individuals possessing GSTT1-null genotypes had significantly more As in their toenails in contrast to GSTT1 wild-type individuals (ß = 0.11; 95% CI, 0.06-0.2). Therefore, it seems that GSTT1 modifies the relationship between As_in exposure and toenail As_in content.

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