Analysis of morphological and molecular composition changes in allergenic Artemisia vulgaris L. pollen under traffic pollution using SEM and FTIR spectroscopy

Abstract

Nowadays, pollen allergy becomes an increasing problem for human population. Common mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris L.) is one of the major allergenic plants in Europe. In this study, the influence of air pollution caused by traffic on the structure and chemical composition of common mugwort pollen was investigated. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and curve-fitting analysis of amide I profile was applied to assess the morphological and structural changes of mugwort pollen grains collected from sites with different vehicle pollution levels. Microscopic observations support the conclusion, that the higher the car traffic, the smaller the pollen grains. The obtained results clearly show that air pollution had an impact on different maximum absorbance values of individual functional groups composing the chemical structure of pollen. Moreover, air pollution induced structural changes in macromolecules of mugwort pollen. In pollen collected from the unpolluted site, the content of sporopollenin (850 cm−1) was the highest, whereas polysaccharide concentration (1032 cm−1) was the lowest. Significant differences were observed in lipids. Pollen collected from the site with heavy traffic had the lowest content of lipids at 1709, 2071, and 2930 cm−1. The largest differences were observed in the spectra regions corresponding to proteins. In pollen collected from unpolluted site, the highest level of β-sheet (1600 cm−1) and α-helix (1650 cm−1) was detected. The structural changes in proteins, observed in the second derivative of the FTIR spectrum and in the curve-fitting analysis of amide I profile, could be caused inter alia by air pollutants. Alterations in protein structure and in their content in the pollen may increase the sensitization and subsequent risk of allergy in predisposed people. The obtained results suggest that the changes in chemical composition of pollen may be a good indicator of air quality and that FTIR may be successfully applied in biomonitoring.

Chemical Analysis of Pollen by FT-Raman and FTIR Spectroscopies

“…In addition to classification and identification studies, vibrational spectroscopies provide biochemical characterization of pollen with respect to environmental conditions. For example, differences in chemical phenotypes of pollen were measured with respect to nutrient availability , heat stress (Lahlali et al, 2014;Jiang et al, 2015), pollution stress (Depciuch et al, 2016(Depciuch et al, , 2017, location (Bagcıoglu et al, 2017;Zimmermann et al, 2017), and season (Zimmermann and Kohler, 2014;Bagcıoglu et al, 2017). In general, Raman and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopies provide chemically complementary information, and therefore measurement of samples by both techniques provides highly detailed biochemical characterization (Zimmermann, 2010;Pummer et al, 2013;Bagcioglu et al, 2015;Zimmermann et al, 2015a;Diehn et al, 2020).…”

A high‐throughput FTIR spectroscopy approach to assess adaptive variation in the chemical composition of pollen

“…In general, FTIR enables fast and economical measurement of samples without any chemical pretreatment. The studies have shown that FTIR spectroscopy is a powerful method for pollen phenotyping because it provides precise identification and chemical characterization with respect to phylogeny and environmental stress (Bağcıoğlu, Kohler, Seifert, Kneipp, & Zimmermann, 2017;Jiang et al, 2015;Lahlali et al, 2014;Zimmermann & Kohler, 2014;Zimmermann et al, 2015b), including influence of anthropogenic stress on chemical composition of pollen (Depciuch, Kasprzyk, Roga, & Parlinska-Wojtan, 2016;Depciuch, Kasprzyk, Sadik, & Parlinska-Wojtan, 2017). However, the use of FTIR spectroscopy to study the genetic and phenotypically plastic components of the chemical composition of pollen and its potential in studies of evolution of male function has not been evaluated.…”

Associations among air pollutants, grass pollens, and daily number of grass pollen allergen‐positive patients: a longitudinal study from 2012 to 2016

“…Air pollutants also impact grass pollen. Depending on the plant species and the pollutant type and concentration, such effects may include altered vitality, shape, size, physiologic features, and metabolism of the pollen grain . Motta et al .…”