Implementation of the biomonitoring system in large scientific expeditions on the example of the scientific and educational project "Arctic Floating University"

Currently, biomonitoring research is actively developing in the Arctic region, despite this, groups of people who temporarily come to the Arctic remain outside the national monitoring system, unlike the local population. Participation in expeditions on ships implies special living conditions, such as limited space, sensory deprivation. The study aims to analyse the biochemical parameters of blood, the content of essential, toxic elements, persistent organic pollutants (POPs) and vitamin D in samples of the expedition group temporarily coming to work in extreme Arctic conditions. Scientists carried out a study on board the Mikhail Somov scientific expedition vessel as part of the Arctic Floating University project. The participants were 50 people: 26 men and 24 women aged 20 to 72 years. As a result of the analysis, the authors have determined: 8 biochemical blood parameters, vitamin D levels by high-performance liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometric detection, the content of essential (Co, Mn, Se, Cu, Zn), toxic elements (As, Cd, Hg, Pb) using an inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer and POPs by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. Almost 90% of the expedition participants had vitamin D concentrations below 20 ng/ml, which indicates a deficiency of this vitamin in the body. After conducting a comparative analysis between the expedition group and the permanent population of the Nenets Autonomous Okrug (NAO), it was found that the expedition group significantly reduced the content of not only toxic compounds (As, Cd, Hg, Pb, POPs), but also essential elements (Co, Mn, Se, Cu, Zn), according to compared to the local population. It is worth noting that the concentration of arsenic in the expedition group is 65 times lower (0.12 µg/L) than in permanent residents of the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation (7.29 µg/L), and the concentration of lead in the group of expedition workers was 42 times lower (0.30 µg/L) than in the local population (15.21 µg/L). The data obtained provide information about the elementary and toxic status of the urban population of the Russian Federation. One of the reasons for such differences may be the predominantly traditional lifestyle of the local NAO population and the biomagnification of toxic substances in food chains. If biomonitoring studies are carried out by specialists on an ongoing basis and the data obtained is accumulated, then a basis may appear for predicting risks of both a short-term and long-term nature. The conducted research contributes to the expansion of the biomonitoring system at the national level.

Ethics. The study was conducted in accordance with the local Ethics Committee of the Northern State Medical University (NSMU) (extract from the minutes of the meeting dated 06/09/2021 No. 04-06-2021).

Contribution:
Korobitsyna R.D.— research concept and design, data collection and processing, writing of the text, the editing;
Varakina Yu.I. — research concept and design, data collection and processing, writing of the text;
Trofimova A.N. — data collection and processing, writing of the text;
Aksenov A.S. — writing of the text, the editing;
Sorokina T.Yu.— research concept and design, writing of the text, the editing.

Gratitude. The authors express their gratitude to the Arctic Floating University project, to the participants of this study, without whom it would not have taken place, to the staff of the Northern State Medical University of the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation for assistance in sampling, primary sample preparation and biochemical analysis, and to Nikita Andreevich Sobolev, a researcher at Lomonosov Moscow State University, for assistance in conducting elemental analysis of samples on the ISP-MS. The work was carried out with the support of the world-class scientific and educational center "Russian Arctic: new materials, technologies and research methods".

Funding. This work was carried out with the financial support of the Russian Science Foundation (Agreement No. 22‑15‑20076 dated 03/22/2022).

Conflict of interests. The authors declare no conflict of interests.

Received: 18.12.2023 / Accepted: 17.01.2024 / Published: 12.02.2024

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