Recent advances have made feasible the use of FTIR as a qualitative and quantitative air monitoring instrument for the workplace. The evaluation of FTIR for IH use has been performed in our laboratory. A transportable FTIR equipped with remote sensing (ROSE) optics has been developed by our laboratory to be used for a new approach to workplace monitoring. This system will give rapid results for qualitative and quantitative analyses of gas and vapor mixtures in air and will have few of the problems associated with traditional sampling devices. However, the long-path measurement results in a type of data intermediate between (and in some cases quite different from) personal sampling data and that produced by fixed-position area monitors. The relevance of the one-path measurement to personal exposures has not been investigated in the past, but it presents the possibility of tailoring beam geometry to the mobility pattern of workers and thereby acquiring exposure estimates which will more closely approximate personal exposures than that normally achieved using area monitors. The approximation of personal exposures by FTIR will depend also on the temporal and spatial variability of the contaminant concentration field in the workplace. This, in turn, is a function of the source characteristics and ventilation. We propose to evaluate these relationships in a large facility in which air flow has been characterized and in which air sampling and data logging equipment is available. The proteins of saliva have important biologic properties with respect to the maintenance of tooth integrity, controlling the proliferation of oral micro-flora, maintaining hydration of oral tissues, etc. The proteins of parotid saliva can be altered in composition by various manipulations, e.g. dietary, by nutritional or hormonal imbalances and by chronic ingestion of various medications. The long term objectives of this research have been to determine the cellular mechanisms by which these changes in protein synthesis occur. The ongoing studies have established that beta adrenergic receptor stimulation is one very important component for the regulation of the synthesis of these proteins.
The specific aims of the current proposal attempt to further explore regulatory mechanisms. Parotid saliva will be collected from rats following experimental manipulations that will prevent a sympathetic and/or a parasympathetic stimulus from reaching the parotid gland. The protein components of parotid saliva will be quantitated by HPLC to determine the role of the autonomic innervation and of each of its branches in the regulation of secretory protein synthesis. In other studies the requirement for production of saliva will be altered. Under such circumstances the parotid gland will increase or decrease its output of parotid saliva to adjust to the changing demands. Again, the individual protein components of parotid saliva will be quantitated to determine if changes in the saliva requirement result in parallel or non-parallel changes in the protein components of the secretion. Further, when experimental conditions result in alterations in the various proteins of parotid saliva, it will be determined if such manipulations result in the appearance of proteins. And finally, a sensitive method to study experimental manipulations on the synthesis of the mRNA for the secretory proteins will be developed. Acinar cell aggregates will be obtained from the parotid glands of rats which have been previously subjected to experimental manipulations to alter their thyroid or glucocorticoid hormone status. The isolated cell aggregates will be exposed to various hormones and/or adrenergic agonists that are known to influence the synthesis of salivary proteins. Messenger RNA will then be isolated and examined in an in vitro system to resolve the separate and combined effects of these hormones and adrenergic agonsits on the synthesis of mRNA. This will be accomplished by recovering the products synthesized in the in vitro system and subjecting them to two dimensional electrophoresis to separate them to two dimensional electrophoresis to separate them. The separated components will be quantitated by videodensitometry of autoradiographs of the gels. This technique will allow us to asses individual and cumulative effects of physiologic perturbations on the synthesis of salivary proteins.
