Carbamate pesticide-induced immunotoxicity and its mechanism

氨基甲酸酯类农药作为杀菌剂和杀虫剂在世界范围内广泛应用。因为氨基甲酸酯类杀虫剂会导致化学敏感性和过敏相关疾病；因此，从预防医学的角度研究氨基甲酸酯类农药的免疫毒性及其作用机制具有重要意义。本研究发现，氨基甲酸酯类杀菌剂ziram能显著抑制自然杀伤细胞（NK）、淋巴因子活化杀伤细胞（LAK）和细胞毒性T淋巴细胞（CTL）的活性。我们还发现，ziram显著诱导NK细胞和T细胞凋亡和坏死，降低NK细胞内抗癌蛋白水平，从而抑制NK、LAK和CTL活性。

Carbamate pesticides are widely used throughout the world in agriculture as fungicides and insecticides. Since carbamate pesticides contribute to chemical sensitivity and allergy related diseases; therefore, it is very important to investigate the immunotoxicity of carbamate pesticides and its mechanism in the perspecive of preventive medicine. In this study, we found that ziram, a carbamate fungicide, significantly inhibits natural killer (NK), lymphokine-activated killer (LAK) and cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) activities. We have also found that ziram significantly induced apoptosis and necrosis in NK and T cells, and reduced the intracellular levels of anticancer proteins in NK cells, which contributed to the inhibitions of NK, LAK and CTL activities.