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The objective of the present study was to determine the prevalence of occupational asthma symptoms among bakery workers. A cross-sectional study was done in the District of Abidjan from February to September 2019 among bakery workers. The study covered all workers aged 18 and over, employed and present in the bakery during interviews and lung tests. The socio-demographic and professional questionnaire of the American Thoracic Society was used, and the obtained qualitative and quantitative data obtained were analyzed with Stata 15.1 software. Out of the 599 workers included in our study, we had 405 bakers (67.6%, IC 95% [0.637–0.712]), 127 salespersons/cashiers (21.2%, IC 95% [0.181–0.247]), 38 cleaning persons (6.3%, IC 95% [0.046–0.086]) and 29 administrative staff (4.8%, IC 95% [0.034–0.069]). 85.8% (IC 95% [0.828–0.884]) of workers did not have the professional qualification in the bakery sector and 11.3% (IC 95% [0.090–0.142]) were illiterate. The prevalence of probable occupational asthma was 9.7%, 2.3%, 0.6% and 1.2%, respectively, among bakers, salespersons/cashiers, cleaning persons and administrative staff. Furthermore, logistic regression analysis revealed a relationship between probable occupational asthma and family history of asthma among the bakers. As a conclusion, the exposure of bakery workers to flour appeared to be one of the risk factors for probable occupational asthma and the work-related asthma. Also, bakers with a family history of asthma had high risk of developing probable occupational asthma.

Summary: The composition of the secretome depends on the combined action of cargo receptors that facilitate protein transport and sequential checkpoints that restrict it to native conformers. Acting after endoplasmic reticulum (ER)-resident chaperones, ERp44 retrieves its clients from downstream compartments. To guarantee efficient quality control, ERp44 should exit the ER as rapidly as its clients, or more. Here, we show that appending ERp44 to different cargo proteins increases their secretion rates. ERp44 binds the cargo receptor ER-Golgi intermediate compartment (ERGIC)-53 in the ER to negotiate preferential loading into COPII vesicles. Silencing ERGIC-53, or competing for its COPII binding with 4-phenylbutyrate, causes secretion of Prdx4, an enzyme that relies on ERp44 for intracellular localization. In more acidic, zinc-rich downstream compartments, ERGIC-53 releases its clients and ERp44, which can bind and retrieve non-native conformers via KDEL receptors. By coupling the transport of cargoes and inspector proteins, cells ensure efficiency and fidelity of secretion.