Bio: Fankun Zhou, PhD, Associate Professor, Deputy Dean of the School of Public Health at Nanchang University. He is a high-level young talent under Jiangxi Province’s “Double Thousand Plan”, a Ganjiang Young Scholar, and a recipient of the Provincial Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation award. Prof. Zhou serves as a committee member and deputy secretary-general of the Specialty Committee of Neurotoxicology of the Chinese Society of Toxicology (CST), a member of the Specialty Committee of Biomarker of the Chinese Environmental Mutagen Society, and a member of the Specialty Committee of Toxicology Education of the CST. His research focuses on the health effects, mechanisms, and interventions of exposure to environmental heavy metals. He has led three projects funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) and several projects supported by the provincial natural science foundation. Prof. Zhou has published over 40 academic papers, including 10 SCI papers as the first author in top-tier journals such as J Hazard Mater and Environ Int. Additionally, he has contributed to two monographs, Environmental Mercury and Arsenic Pollution and Health (also serving as the secretary for this book) and Chemical Toxicity Encyclopedia. He has received a second prize for scientific and technological progress from Jiangxi Province, holds six patents and software copyrights, and has won multiple outstanding presentation awards at academic conferences.

Abstract: Studies on the relationships between occupational metals exposure, especially heavy metals exposure and electrocardiographic (ECG) conduction disturbances are limited, particularly the mechanism with metabolite. We examined 16 blood metals, ECG outcomes and untargeted metabolome profile among 529 lead smelter workers. Statistical analysis included a battery of variable selection approaches, logistic regression for metal/metabolite associations, and Bayesian kernel machine regression (BKMR) to identify mixed effects of metals/metabolites on ECG conduction abnormalities risk. We found that Hg, Pb and Mn exposure associated with increased worse ECG outcomes high QRS voltage, while Mg associated with decreased high QRS voltage risk in single compound models. Mixed exposures have an overall positive effect on high QRS voltage risk, with Hg making the primary contribution. A novel integrative analysis identified a cluster of high QRS voltage characterized by increased Hg, Pb, Mn and decreased Mg levels, and altered metabolite patterns highlighted by the upregulation of succinic acid. Our study provided evidence that occupational metals exposure is linked to a higher risk of worse ECG outcomes (high QRS voltage), possibly through changes in succinic acid metabolism.