In silico prediction of carcinogenic mechanisms induced by mixture of toxic substances from E-waste dust.

Abstract

Humans are constantly exposed to low doses of various metals and organic compounds in electronic waste (e-waste) recycling areas. Although these substances individually have been identified as environmental carcinogens that influence the onset and progression of tumors, their combined effect on human cancers has not been sufficiently investigated. For this reason, the goal of the current analysis is to evaluate the possible molecular mechanisms between exposure to a mixture of As, Cd, Cr, Hg, Pb, Sb, DBDE, DBDPE, and TBBPA from e-waste and the onset and progression of common human cancers via in silico toxicogenomic tools. The CTD, GeneMANIA, ToppGene Suite portal, and TIMER2 online server were utilized as the primary data-mining tools. Eleven genes that were linked to different types of cancer were found to be shared by most of the substances under investigation. Notably, co-expression (58.91 %) was the most common interaction among these genes. The examined mixture's primary molecular route linked to human cancers was found to be the interleukin 4 and interleukin 13 signaling pathway, which was further connected to the macrophage infiltration. These results underline the critical need for the future research that focus on examining the 11 particular genes as well as the mechanism involving IL4/IL13-mediated macrophage infiltration, to address this environmental health hazard and the development of targeted tumor prevention and control policies for populations exposed to the toxic substance from e-waste recycling process.