Journal ArticleDOI
Meteorological Influences on Respirable Fragment Release from Chinese Elm Pollen
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TLDR
The rupture of Chinese elm pollen under controlled laboratory conditions and in the outdoor atmosphere is examined, indicating that pollen counts underestimate total atmospheric pollen allergen concentrations and raises the possibility of exposure of sensitive individuals to pollen allergens in the form of fine particles that can penetrate into the lower airways and pose potentially severe health risks.Abstract:
Exposure to airborne pollen from certain plants can cause allergic disease, leading to acute respiratory symptoms. Whole pollen grains, 15–90 µm-sized particles, provoke the upper respiratory symptoms of rhinitis (hay fever), while smaller pollen fragments capable of depositing in the lower respiratory tract have been proposed as the trigger for asthma. In order to understand factors leading to pollen release and fragmentation we have examined the rupture of Chinese elm pollen under controlled laboratory conditions and in the outdoor atmosphere. Within 30 minutes after immersion in water, 70% of fresh Chinese pollen ruptures, rapidly expelling cytoplasm. Chinese elm flowers, placed in a controlled atmosphere chamber, emitted pollen and pollen debris after a sequential treatment of 98% relative humidity followed by drying and a gentle disturbance. Immunologic assays of antigenic proteins specific to elm pollens revealed that fine particulate material (Dp < 2 µm) collected from the chamber contained elm pollen antigens. In a temporal study of the outdoor urban atmosphere during the Chinese elm bloom season of 2004, peak concentrations of pollen and fine pollen fragments occurred at the beginning of the season when nocturnal relative humidity (RH) exceeded 90%. Following later periods of hot dry weather, pollen counts decreased to zero. The Chinese elm pollen fragments also decreased during the hot weather, but later displayed additional peaks following periods of more moderate RH and temperature, indicating that pollen counts underestimate total atmospheric pollen allergen concentrations. Pollen fragments thus increase the biogenic load in the atmosphere in a form that is no longer recognizable as pollen and, therefore, is not amenable to microscopic analysis. This raises the possibility of exposure of sensitive individuals to pollen allergens in the form of fine particles that can penetrate into the lower airways and pose potentially severe health risks.read more
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
Primary biological aerosol particles in the atmosphere: a review
Viviane R. Després,J. Alex Huffman,Susannah M. Burrows,Corinna Hoose,Aleksandr S. Safatov,G. A. Buryak,Janine Fröhlich-Nowoisky,W. Elbert,Meinrat O. Andreae,Ulrich Pöschl,Ruprecht Jaenicke +10 more
TL;DR: A review of the current knowledge on major categories of primary biological aerosol particles (PBAP): bacteria and archaea, fungal spores and fragments, pollen, viruses, algae and cyanobacteria, biological crusts and lichens and others like plant or animal fragments and detritus is presented in this article.
Journal ArticleDOI
Bioaerosols in the Earth system: Climate, health, and ecosystem interactions
Janine Fröhlich-Nowoisky,Christopher J. Kampf,Christopher J. Kampf,Bettina Weber,J. Alex Huffman,Christopher Pöhlker,Meinrat O. Andreae,Naama Lang-Yona,Susannah M. Burrows,Sachin S. Gunthe,W. Elbert,Hang Su,Peter Hoor,Eckhard Thines,Thorsten Hoffmann,Viviane R. Després,Ulrich Pöschl +16 more
TL;DR: A review of the state of bioaerosol research, highlights recent advances, and outlines future perspectives in terms of identification, characterization, transport and transformation processes, as well as their interactions with climate, health, and ecosystems, focusing on the role bio-aerosols play in the Earth system.
Journal ArticleDOI
High concentrations of biological aerosol particles and ice nuclei during and after rain
J. A. Huffman,J. A. Huffman,Anthony J. Prenni,Paul J. DeMott,Christopher Pöhlker,Ryan H. Mason,Niall Robinson,Janine Fröhlich-Nowoisky,Yutaka Tobo,Viviane R. Després,E. Garcia,David Gochis,Eliza Harris,Isabell Müller-Germann,C. Ruzene,Beatrice Schmer,Baerbel Sinha,Baerbel Sinha,Douglas A. Day,Meinrat O. Andreae,Jose L. Jimenez,Martin Gallagher,Sonia M. Kreidenweis,Allan K. Bertram,Ulrich Pöschl +24 more
TL;DR: It is shown that the concentration of airborne biological particles in a North American forest ecosystem increases significantly during rain and that bioparticles are closely correlated with atmospheric ice nuclei (IN).
Journal ArticleDOI
Size distributions and temporal variations of biological aerosol particles in the Amazon rainforest characterized by microscopy and real-time UV-APS fluorescence techniques during AMAZE-08
J. A. Huffman,Baerbel Sinha,Rebecca M. Garland,A. Snee-Pollmann,A. Snee-Pollmann,Sachin S. Gunthe,Paulo Artaxo,S. T. Martin,Meinrat O. Andreae,Ulrich Pöschl +9 more
TL;DR: In this paper, an ultraviolet aerodynamic particle sizer (UV-APS) was operated for continuous measurements of fluorescent biological aerosol particles (FBAP) during the AMAZE-08 campaign in the rainforest of central Amazonia.
Journal ArticleDOI
Real-time sensing of bioaerosols: Review and current perspectives
J. Alex Huffman,Anne E. Perring,Nicole J. Savage,Bernard Clot,Benoît Crouzy,Fiona Tummon,Ofir Shoshanim,Brian Damit,Johannes Schneider,Vasanthi Sivaprakasam,Maria A. Zawadowicz,Ian Crawford,Martin Gallagher,David Topping,David C. Doughty,Steven C. Hill,Yong-Le Pan +16 more
TL;DR: The detection of bioaerosols, or primary biological aerosol particles (PBAPs), has become increasingly important for a wide variety of research communities and scientific questions as discussed by the authors.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI
Quantification of urban organic aerosols at a molecular level: Identification, abundance and seasonal variation
TL;DR: In this paper, high-resolution gas chromatography and mass spectrometers were used to identify primary organic aerosol constituents, revealing an annual pattern with high winter and low summer concentrations.
Journal ArticleDOI
Mechanism of grass-pollen-induced asthma
Cenk Suphioglu,Mohan Singh,Paul J. Taylor,Robert Bruce Knox,Rinaldo Bellomo,Peter Holmes,Robert Puy +6 more
TL;DR: Investigation of the mechanism by which rye-grass pollen causes asthma found that pollen grains are ruptured in rainwater by osmotic shock, each grain releasing about 700 starch granules into the environment, which seem to be capable of causing asthma.
Journal ArticleDOI
Release of allergens as respirable aerosols: A link between grass pollen and asthma
TL;DR: First direct observations of the release of grass pollen allergens as respirable aerosols can emanate directly from the flower after a moisture-drying cycle are provided, which could explain asthmatic responses associated with grass pollination, particularly after moist weather conditions.
Journal ArticleDOI
Source reconciliation of atmospheric gas-phase and particle-phase pollutants during a severe photochemical smog episode
TL;DR: Estimated secondary organic aerosol concentrations correlate fairly well with the concentrations of 1,2-benzenedicarboxylic acid in the atmospheric fine particle mass, indicating that aromatic diacids may be useful in the quantification of certain sources of secondaryorganic aerosol in the atmosphere.
Journal ArticleDOI
A cyclone for size-selective sampling of ambient air
Walter John,Georg Reischl +1 more
TL;DR: A cyclone with a 47 mm after-filter has been developed for ambient air size-selective monitoring as discussed by the authors, which has been extensively evaluated with laboratory-generated aerosol and has shown that the cyclone operates in a single flow regime with a vortex in the outlet flow.
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