Summary： The contribution of particles to cardiovascular mortality and morbidity has been enlightened by epidemiologic and experimental studies. However, adverse biological effects of the particles with different sizes on cardiovascular cells have not been well recognized. In this study, sub-cultured human umbilical vein endothelial cells （HUVECs） were exposed to increasing concentrations of pure quartz particles （DQ） of three sizes （DQPM1, 〈1 μm; DQPM3-5, 3-5 μm; DQPM5, 5 μm） and carbon black particles of two sizes （CB0.1, 〈0.1 μm; CB 1, 〈 1 μm） for 24 h. Cytotoxicity was estimated by measuring the activity of lactate dehydrogenase （LDH） and cell viability. Nitric oxide （NO） generation and cyto- kines （TNF-α and IL-1β） releases were analyzed by using NO assay and enzyme-linked immunoabsorbent assay （ELISA）, respectively. It was found that both particles induced adverse biological effects on HUVECs in a dose-dependent manner. The size of particle directly influenced the biological activity. For quartz, the smaller particles induced stronger cytotoxicity and higher levels of cytokine responses than those particles of big size. For carbon black particles, CB0.1 was more capable of inducing adverse responses on HUVECs than CB 1 only at lower particle concentrations, in contrast to those at higher concentrations. Meanwhile, our data also revealed that quartz particles performed stronger cell damage and produced higher levels of TNF-α than carbon black particles, even if particles size was similar. In conclusion, particle size as well as particle composition should be both considered in assessing vascular endothelial cells injury and inflammation responses induced by particles.
As a nonparametric method,the Kruskal-Wallis test is widely used to compare three or more independent groups when an ordinal or interval level of data is available,especially when the assump-tions of analysis of variance (ANOVA) are not met.If the Kruskal-Wallis statistic is statistically signifi-cant,Nemenyi test is an alternative method for further pairwise multiple comparisons to locate the source of significance.Unfortunately,most popular statistical packages do not integrate the Nemenyi test,which is not easy to be calculated by hand.We described the theory and applications of the Kruskal-Wallis and Nemenyi tests,and presented a flexible SAS macro to implement the two tests.The SAS macro was demonstrated by two examples from our cohort study in occupational epidemiology.It provides a useful tool for SAS users to test the differences among three or more independent groups using a nonparametric method.
