Effects of Differences in Areas of Growth and Plant Varieties on Endotoxin Contamination of Airborne Dusts from Carded Cottons

Abstract

Endotoxins can exert profound biological effects both in vivo and in vitro (Morrison and Ulevitch, 1978; Bradley, 1979). However, the role of gram-negative bacteria or their endotoxins in the etiology or exacerbation of the acute pulmonary reaction to inhaled cotton dusts remains to beclarified. Gram-negative bacteria have been shown to be associated with the cotton fiber (Neal et al. , 1942; Helander and Lounatmaa, 1981; Millner et al. , 1982), and electron microscopic examination of cotton fiber revealed the shedding of the lipopolysaccharide-containing outer membrane of cotton-related organisms (Helander and Lounatmaa, 1981; Lounatmaa and Helander, 1982). Card-generated cotton dusts likewise contain the bacterial sources of endotoxins (Millner et al. , 1984), and endotoxins are quantified readily in the elutriated dusts (Olenchock, et al. , 1984). Comparisons between the acute pulmonary function response of human subjects who were exposed to card-generated cotton dusts and the concentration of endotoxins in those dusts were correlated highly ( Castellan et al. , 1984; Olenchock et al. , 1984; Rylander et al. , 1985). Thus, the presence of gram-negative bacterial endotoxins in cotton dusts must be examined for possible relationships to acute, and perhaps chronic, pulmonary changes in cotton dust-exposed individuals.