Genetic effects of welding fumes on the development of respiratory system diseases

Background The welding process releases potentially hazardous gases and fumes, mainly composed of metallic oxides, fluorides and silicates. Long term welding fume (WF) inhalation is a recognized health issue that carries a risk of developing chronic health problems, particularly respiratory system diseases (RSDs). Aside from general airway irritation, WF exposure may drive direct cellular responses in the respiratory system which increase risk of RSD, but these are not well understood. Methods We developed a quantitative framework to identify gene expression effects of WF exposure that may affect RSD development. We analyzed gene expression microarray data from WF-exposed tissues and RSD-affected tissues, including chronic bronchitis (CB), asthma (AS), pulmonary edema (PE), lung cancer (LC) datasets. We built disease-gene (diseasome) association networks…