By potentially provoking more inflammation and cellular stress, dust from brake pads could be more harmful to human pulmonary cells than exhaust gases for diesel engines.
- The particles from the brake wear can more disturb the cellular homeostasis than those from the exhaust gases of diesel engines.
- More specifically, they cause more oxidative stress, inflammation and “pseudohypooxic HIF activation, namely a path involved in diseases associated with exposure to air pollution, including cancer and pulmonary fibrosis.”
- According to researchers, the withdrawal of copper used in the manufacture of brake pads would reduce the toxic effects of dust emitted by the circulation of cars.
While cities around the world repress emissions from petrol or diesel vehicles, a more insidious form of air pollution has developed discreetly in parallel with the increase in traffic: dust from brake pads. In a recent study, researchers from the University of Southampton (United Kingdom) were interested in the effects of fine particles (PM2.5) released during the braking of vehicles and in air suspension, which can reach regions alveolar lungs and are associated with more than 4 million premature deaths per year in the world. A source, for the time being, “unregulated”.
Inflammation, oxidative stress: brake dust disturbs cell homeostasis
To carry out the work, published in the journal Toxicology party and fiberthe team cultivated laboratory cells to imitate the wall of the lung and exposed these cells both to brake dust, some of which are asbestos but containing copper, and to diesel exhaust gas dust. “We used the RNA-SEQ to analyze global transcriptomic changes, metabolic analyzes to study glycolytic reprogramming, mass spectrometry to determine the composition of particles”, Can we read in research.
The results have shown that brake dust was much more harmful to pulmonary cells than diesel engines exhaust. In detail, the particles generated by asbestos without asbestos but containing copper induced the most oxidative stress, inflammation and “Pseudohypooxic HIF activation, namely a path involved in diseases associated with exposure to air pollution, including cancer and pulmonary fibrosis.” In addition, the brake dust further disrupted metabolism with respect to the brake wear particles from weakly or semi-metallic platelets. When the authors treated this brake dust with a chemical to neutralize copper, its toxic effects have been attenuated.
The need for targeted legislation to protect the pulmonary health of populations
Faced with this data, scientists indicate that it is urgent to also consider regulation of emissions other than those of exhaust gases. “New brake pads could reduce the total level of dust emissions or be designed to exclude toxic components in the same way as asbestos has been eliminated before. In the United States, California and the State de Washington notably adopted legislation aimed at reducing the copper content of brake pads, although this measure was mainly adopted in response to concerns concerning the Copper runoff from brake dust in rivers, affecting aquatic life “, they explained.
