Correlation between meteorological conditions and mutagenicity of airborne particupate samples in a tropical monsoon climate area from Kaohsiung City, Taiwan

Abstract

Kaohsiung is a city of 1.5 million located in the southern part of Taiwan. It has a serious air pollution problem mainly attributable to much industrial and commercial activity. In order to estimate the effects of traffic, season, and meteorological conditions on the mutagenicity of Kaohsiung City's urban ambient particulate matter, 624 airborne particulate samples were collected on a weekly basis from 12 locations for an entire year. The mutagenic potential of acetone extracts of air samples was evaluated by the Salmonella/microsomal test with S. typhimurium TA98 in the presence and absence of S9 mixtures. The air samples from November 1990 showed the highest direct and indirect mutagenicity among the 12 months, whereas those from June and July 1991 had the lowest direct and indirect mutagenic activity, respectively. The mutagenicity showed a good correlation with amounts of the acetone extractable matter of airborne particulates. The meteorological conditions, monthly mean precipitation, and wind speed also showed a good correspondence with mutagenicity. Wind direction and temperature had a moderate relationship. The major mutagenic fractions of air samples that had the highest mutagenic activity in a month were purified using Sephadex LH-20 column chromatography, and the contents of PAHs, 1-NP, and DNPs were analyzed by HPLC. The characteristic concentration ratios of PAHs indicated that, for the main pollution sources of airborne particulates from Kaohsiung city, the mobile sources were more important than the stationary ones. The total amounts of 1-NP and DNPs in airborne particulates seemed to correspond to their mutagenicity. Although the total amounts of 1-NP and DNPs in the air samples correlated with their mutagenicity, the major mutagenic chemicals in the airborne particulate samples from Kaohsiung City need further investigation.

Correlation between the Amounts of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons and Mutagenicity of Airborne Particulate Samples from Taichung City, Taiwan

“…Our previous reports indicated that the compounds responsible for most of the direct-acting mutagenicity of urban airborne particulates from four major cities in Taiwan seemed to be dinitropyrenes (DNPs) (Chou and Lee, 1990). However, amounts of PAHs were not correlated with the indirect-acting mutagenicity of urban airborne particulates from Kaohsiung City (Lee et al, 1994). The latter finding may have resulted from the small sample size used for the analysis of PAHs.…”

“…Each airborne particulate sample on glass fiber filter was extracted with acetone in a shaker as previously reported (Lee et al, 1994). The organic extracts were filtered through Whatman No.…”

“…To eliminate the incidence of these disease, it is important to find the compounds causing these adverse biological effects. Organic solvent extracts of airborne particulates generated from combustion processes contain a large number of compounds that are mutagenic in short-term bioassays and carcinogenic in laboratory animals (Lewtas, 1993;Chou and Lee, 1990;Lee et al, 1994). Many of these compounds contain PAHs or PAH derivatives such as oxygenated and nitrated PAH (Moller et al, 1985).…”

Air Quality Assessment in the Surroundings of KMML Industrial Area, Chavara in Kerala, South India

“…While being transported, the pollutants undergo chemical reactions, which may be lethal or scavenged by chemical or physical process/method. But it all exclusively depends upon meteorological conditions (Lee et al, 1994). The location, duration of release, height as well as the pollutant concentrations are also important, which effect the secondary pollutant transformation under the influence of meteorological conditions, but the atmospheric behavior is independent of their sources (Holzworth, 1974).…”

Mutagenicity of diesel engine exhaust in the Ames /Salmonella assayusing a direct exposure method

“…Organic solvent extracts of airborne particulates generated by combustion processes contain a large number of compounds that are mutagenic in short-term bioassays and carcinogenic in laboratory animals (Chou and Lee 1990;Lee et al 1994). Diesel exhaust particle (DEP) extracts have been found to be both direct-acting and indirect-acting in the Ames bacterial mutation assay (Ball et al 1990, Lapin et al 2002.…”