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. 2022 Dec 10;19(24):16608.
doi: 10.3390/ijerph192416608.

Genotoxicity and Reproductive Risk in Workers Exposed to Pesticides in Rural Areas of Curicó, Chile: A Pilot Study

Natalia Landeros  1   2 , Soledad Duk  3 , Carolina Márquez  3 , Bárbara Inzunza  3 , Ian S Acuña-Rodríguez  4 , Liliana A Zúñiga-Venegas  2   5
Affiliations

Genotoxicity and Reproductive Risk in Workers Exposed to Pesticides in Rural Areas of Curicó, Chile: A Pilot Study

Natalia Landeros et al. Int J Environ Res Public Health. .

Abstract

Significant risks to human health have been associated with chronic exposure to low doses of pesticides, a situation which may be frequent among agricultural workers. In this context, and regarding the agricultural-based economy of central Chile, we aimed to explore the genotoxic damage in agricultural workers and reproductive risk among women in rural and urban areas of Curicó, a traditional agricultural district in Chile. Hence, we sampled a group of rural agricultural workers associated with pesticide management (n = 30) and an urban unexposed group (n = 30). Our results showed that the agricultural workers had higher micronuclei frequencies (MN: β = 13.27; 95% CI low = 11.08, CI high = 15.47) and women had a 40-fold higher risk of reproductive problems (OR = 40.32; 95% CI low = 2.60, CI high = 624.31) than the unexposed group. The factor analysis of mixed data (FAMD) showed that neither the sex nor smoking habits appear to define the ordination of the data. Nevertheless, the exposure level did segregate them in the multidimensional space (explained variance: 35.38% dim-1; 18.63% dim-2). This pilot study highlights the higher risks of biological conditions negatively associated with the health of agricultural workers.

Keywords: Chile; agricultural workers; genotoxicity; pesticide exposure; reproductive risk.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Location of the sampling sites of the study. The main map shows the study site (black square) within Chile and the Maule Region. The inset picture shows the specific sampling points of exposed (Sarmiento and Los Niches) and unexposed (Curicó) groups.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Cytogenetic damage among unexposed and exposed individuals from Curicó (Chile). The boxes and bars represent the interquartile distribution of the individual frequency of binucleated cells with micronuclei (BNMN). The central line inside the boxes represents the data median. Comparison of cytogenetic damage level between study groups was performed through a U-Mann Whitney test. *** = p < 0.001.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Cytogenetic damage level between women who have reported reproductive problems and those who have not. *** p < 0.003 U-Mann Whitney test.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Results from the factor analysis of mixed data (FAMD). It shows the similarity relations between samples (A), the correlation circle for continuous variables (B) and the relation among all variables in the bidimensional space (C). Black triangles in (A) show the centroid for the respective group category. For the exposure groups variable, the red-blue ellipses denote the 95% confidence interval around the group (unexposed, exposed) centroid, which corresponds to the empty circle (slightly larger than the rest) within the respective ellipse. Red names in (C) correspond to categorical variables, while those in black represent continuous variables. MN: Micronucleus frequency; NDI: nuclear division index; NPB: nucleoplasmic bridge; NBUD: nuclear bud.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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