Composition and effects of inhalable size fractions of atmospheric aerosols in the polluted atmosphere. Part II. In vitro biological potencies.
TL;DR: An average daily exposure based just on the concentrations of contaminants contained in PM10, as regulated in EU legislation so far, is not a sufficient indicator of contaminants in air particulates and adoption of standards more similar to other countries and inclusion of other parameters besides mass should be considered.
About: This article is published in Environment International.The article was published on 2014-02-01. It has received 38 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: Environmental exposure & Pollution.
Citations
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TL;DR: The role of distinct PM components in health impacts and mortality needs to be clarified by integrated research on various spatiotemporal scales for better evaluation and mitigation of aerosol effects on public health in the Anthropocene.
Abstract: Poor air quality is globally the largest environmental health risk. Epidemiological studies have uncovered clear relationships of gaseous pollutants and particulate matter (PM) with adverse health outcomes, including mortality by cardiovascular and respiratory diseases. Studies of health impacts by aerosols are highly multidisciplinary with a broad range of scales in space and time. We assess recent advances and future challenges regarding aerosol effects on health from molecular to global scales through epidemiological studies, field measurements, health-related properties of PM, and multiphase interactions of oxidants and PM upon respiratory deposition. Global modeling combined with epidemiological exposure-response functions indicates that ambient air pollution causes more than four million premature deaths per year. Epidemiological studies usually refer to PM mass concentrations, but some health effects may relate to specific constituents such as bioaerosols, polycyclic aromatic compounds, and transition metals. Various analytical techniques and cellular and molecular assays are applied to assess the redox activity of PM and the formation of reactive oxygen species. Multiphase chemical interactions of lung antioxidants with atmospheric pollutants are crucial to the mechanistic and molecular understanding of oxidative stress upon respiratory deposition. The role of distinct PM components in health impacts and mortality needs to be clarified by integrated research on various spatiotemporal scales for better evaluation and mitigation of aerosol effects on public health in the Anthropocene.
344 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the seasonal size distribution of particulate polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and dibenzofurans (PCDD/Fs) and dioxin-like polychlorined biphenyls (dl-PCBs) in the atmosphere was presented.
60 citations
TL;DR: Overall, increased PM2.5 level was associated with higher prevalence of TLBW county-wide, and the effects may be spatially patterned, and that simply estimating global pollutant effects obscures disparities suggested by spatial patterns of effects.
60 citations
Cites background from "Composition and effects of inhalabl..."
...In addition to spatial clustering of neighborhood and individual determinants and effect measure modifiers for birth outcomes, multi-pollutant mixtures in urban areas may create gradients in effects between Sub-Regions (Levy et al., 2013; Novák et al., 2014)....
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TL;DR: In this paper, the reactivity in the atmospheric gas and particulate phases is incompletely quantified, in particular with regard to coverage of aerosol matrix diversity and photochemical age.
59 citations
Cites background from "Composition and effects of inhalabl..."
...The toxic equivalents calculated from the EPA PAH levels (pahTEQ) (79) typically contribute a few percent to the overall bioTEQ in PM extracts (81, 82), while up to 20% or so is attributable to nitro-PAHs (29, 83) and even more to oxy-PAHs and quinones that have been shown to possess dioxin-like potency (84, 85)....
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...Some PAHs are estrogenic while other PAHs or compounds in diesel exhausts are reported to be antiestrogenic (82)....
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TL;DR: It is concluded that the in vitro based approach for establishing MPFs could be a novel method to assess whole mixture samples of airborne PAHs to improve health risk assessment.
Abstract: Complex mixtures of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are common environmental pollutants associated with adverse human health effects including cancer. However, the risk of exposure to mixtures is difficult to estimate, and risk assessment by whole mixture potency evaluations has been suggested. To facilitate this, reliable in vitro based testing systems are necessary. Here, we investigated if activation of DNA damage signaling in vitro could be an endpoint for developing whole mixture potency factors (MPFs) for airborne PAHs. Activation of DNA damage signaling was assessed by phosphorylation of Chk1 and H2AX using Western blotting. To validate the in vitro approach, potency factors were determined for seven individual PAHs which were in very good agreement with established potency factors based on cancer data in vivo. Applying the method using Stockholm air PAH samples indicated MPFs with orders of magnitude higher carcinogenic potency than predicted by established in vivo-based potency factors. A...
41 citations
References
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TL;DR: Air pollution has both acute and chronic effects on human health, affecting a number of different systems and organs, and ranges from minor upper respiratory irritation to chronic respiratory and heart disease, lung cancer, acute respiratory infections in children and chronic bronchitis in adults.
3,000 citations
TL;DR: A multidisciplinary approach using epidemiology, animal toxicology, and controlled human exposure studies has contributed to the database, and studies of humans but will also draw on findings from the other disciplines.
Abstract: Over the past three or four decades, there have been important advances in the understanding of the actions, exposure-response characteristics, and mechanisms of action of many common air pollutant
1,198 citations
Additional excerpts
...PM seems to be inversely proportional to particle diameter (de Kok et al., 2006; Englert, 2004; Kampa and Castanas, 2008)....
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TL;DR: The aim of this rostrum is to review the relevant publications that provide the appropriate context for assessing the risks of air pollution relative to other more modifiable environmental factors in patients with allergic airways disease.
Abstract: The general public, especially patients with upper or lower respiratory symptoms, is aware from media reports that adverse respiratory effects can occur from air pollution. It is important for the allergist to have a current knowledge of the potential health effects of air pollution and how they might affect their patients to advise them accordingly. Specifically, the allergist–clinical immunologist should be keenly aware that both gaseous and particulate outdoor pollutants might aggravate or enhance the underlying pathophysiology of both the upper and lower airways. Epidemiologic and laboratory exposure research studies investigating the health effects of outdoor air pollution each have advantages and disadvantages. Epidemiologic studies can show statistical associations between levels of individual or combined air pollutants and outcomes, such as rates of asthma, emergency visits for asthma, or hospital admissions, but cannot prove a causative role. Human exposure studies, animal models, and tissue or cellular studies provide further information on mechanisms of response but also have inherent limitations. The aim of this rostrum is to review the relevant publications that provide the appropriate context for assessing the risks of air pollution relative to other more modifiable environmental factors in patients with allergic airways disease.
721 citations
"Composition and effects of inhalabl..." refers background in this paper
...Exposure to air pollutants is associatedwith various diseases such as bronchitis, asthma, lung cancer, respiratory problems or arteriosclerosis — for review see Bernstein et al. (2004)....
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...Particulates from localities III (airport-rural countryside) and IV (traffic junction) contained, beside maximum in the finest fraction of air particulates, relatively high proportions of the B fraction (3–7.2 μm) of PM that probably came from the traffic (dust whirling; Bernstein et al., 2004)....
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...While the coarse particles, formed mainly by mechanical processes (Bernstein et al., 2004), are deposited mostly in upper respiratory airways and are eventually expelled by mucociliary clearance, fine and ultrafine particles, originating mainly from combustion sources, pass into the alveoli where…...
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...While the coarse particles, formed mainly by mechanical processes (Bernstein et al., 2004), are deposited mostly in upper respiratory airways and are eventually expelled by mucociliary clearance, fine and ultrafine particles, originating mainly from combustion sources, pass into the alveoli where they can persist (Lippmann et al....
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...2 μm) of PM that probably came from the traffic (dust whirling; Bernstein et al., 2004)....
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TL;DR: In this paper, the role of particle size and particle composition was discussed, and the effect of particle number and composition on health effects of exposure to ultrafine particles was investigated in numerous epidemiological studies.
667 citations
TL;DR: Although there is substantial evidence that PAH or substituted PAH may be causative agent in cancer and reproductive effects, an increasing number of studies investigating cardiopulmonary and cardiovascular effects are investigating these and other potential causative agents from air pollution combustion sources.
Abstract: Combustion emissions account for over half of the fine particle (PM2.5) air pollution and most of the primary particulate organic matter. Human exposure to combustion emissions including the associated airborne fine particles and mutagenic and carcinogenic constituents (e.g., polycyclic aromatic compounds (PAC), nitro-PAC) have been studied in populations in Europe, America, Asia, and increasingly in third-world counties. Bioassay-directed fractionation studies of particulate organic air pollution have identified mutagenic and carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), nitrated PAH, nitro-lactones, and lower molecular weight compounds from cooking. A number of these components are significant sources of human exposure to mutagenic and carcinogenic chemicals that may also cause oxidative and DNA damage that can lead to reproductive and cardiovascular effects. Chemical and physical tracers have been used to apportion outdoor and indoor and personal exposures to airborne particles between various combustion emissions and other sources. These sources include vehicles (e.g., diesel and gasoline vehicles), heating and power sources (e.g., including coal, oil, and biomass), indoor sources (e.g., cooking, heating, and tobacco smoke), as well as secondary organic aerosols and pollutants derived from long-range transport. Biomarkers of exposure, dose and susceptibility have been measured in populations exposed to air pollution combustion emissions. Biomarkers have included metabolic genotype, DNA adducts, PAH metabolites, and urinary mutagenic activity. A number of studies have shown a significant correlation of exposure to PM2.5 with these biomarkers. In addition, stratification by genotype increased this correlation. New multivariate receptor models, recently used to determine the sources of ambient particles, are now being explored in the analysis of human exposure and biomarker data. Human studies of both short- and long-term exposures to combustion emissions and ambient fine particulate air pollution have been associated with measures of genetic damage. Long-term epidemiologic studies have reported an increased risk of all causes of mortality, cardiopulmonary mortality, and lung cancer mortality associated with increasing exposures to air pollution. Adverse reproductive effects (e.g., risk for low birth weight) have also recently been reported in Eastern Europe and North America. Although there is substantial evidence that PAH or substituted PAH may be causative agents in cancer and reproductive effects, an
635 citations
"Composition and effects of inhalabl..." refers background in this paper
...Genotoxicity is a well-documented effect of air pollutants both in vivo and in vitro (Lewtas, 2007)....
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