Axe de Recherche en Santé des Populations et Environnementale, Centre de Recherche du Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Québec and Université Laval, 2875 Boulevard Laurier, Québec, QC, Canada. marc.medehouenou@mail.com
The exposure of Inuit people to polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and chlorinated pesticides has been well characterised but little is known regarding their exposure to dioxin-like compounds, which induce toxic effects through binding to the aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR). In order to obtain a global measure of persistent organic pollutants in plasma that interact with this signalling pathway, we used a luciferase reporter gene assay to assess the AhR-mediated transcriptional activity elicited by plasma sample extracts from 874 Inuit adults who were recruited in the course of a prospective epidemiological study conducted in Nunavik (Québec, Canada). Several sociodemographic, anthropometric, dietary and lifestyle variables were considered as possible modulating factors of the AhR-mediated activity in multivariate statistical analyses. The geometric mean AhR-mediated activity expressed as 2,3,7,8-tetachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin equivalents was 8.9 pg g(-1) lipids (range: