Iranian Journal of War and Public Health

Introduction: Sulfur mustard is a vesicant agent has been used During the Iran-Iraq War as a war expedient. One of the most important tissues involved in SM-induced injury are lung and airway. At present, about 40 thousand chemical casualty of war are suffering from pulmonary lesions caused by sulfur mustard.Airway remodeling is the main pathological finding in these patients that associated with pre-bronchial fibrosis and classified in COPD. Whereas nearly two decades of research have suggested that TGF-β plays a central role in the pathogenesis of pulmonary fibrosis by promoting the activation, proliferation, and differentiation of epithelial cells and collagen-producing myofibroblasts. In this study, the gene expressions of TGF-β in normal and exposed airway epithelial cells compared and analyzed.

Materials and Methods: Cell line of human lung epithelial maintained in RPMI and incubated at 37◦ humidified atmosphere of 5% Co2 .Then Near-confluent culture were used for sulfur mustard exposure in different dose and time. The cells viability evaluated by MTT test for different micromoles of sulfur mustard. After RNA extraction and DNA synthesis, expression of TGF-β variants was assayed using RT-PCR.

Result: our finding revealed that expression levels of TGF-βs variant In exposed epithelial cells with sulfur mustard in comparison with control samples have meaningful difference. TGF-β1 and TGF-β2 genes expression were observed in exposed cells higher than control group.

Conclusion: it was suggested that TGF-β pathway might be involved in the processes of airway remodeling and could be a good target for gene therapy.