Genotoxicity of Air Borne Particulates Assessed by Comet and the Salmonella Mutagenicity Test in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Fine airborne respirable particulates less than 10 micrometer (PM10) are considered one of the top environmental public health concerns, since they contain polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) which are among the major carcinogenic compounds found in urban air. The objective of this study is to assess the genotoxicity of the ambient PM10 collected at 11 urban sites in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The PM10 extractable organic matter (EOM) was examined for its genotoxicity by the single cell gel electrophoresis (SCGE) comet assay and the Salmonella mutagenicity (Ames) test. Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry was used to quantify 16 PAH compounds in four sites. Samples from oil refinery and heavy diesel vehicles traffic sites showed significant DNA damage causing comet in 20–44% of the cells with tail moments ranging from 0.5–2.0 compared to samples from petrol driven cars and residential area, with comet in less than 2% of the cells and tail moments of < 0.02.In the Ames test, polluted sites showed indirect mutagenic response and caused 20–56 rev/ m3, mean while residential and reference sites caused 2–15 rev /m3. The genotoxicity of the EOM in both tests directly correlated with the amount of organic particulate and the PAHs concentrations in the air samples. The PAHs concentrations ranged between 0.83 ng/m3 in industrial and heavy diesel vehicles traffic sites to 0.18 ng /m3 in the residential area. Benzo(ghi)pyrene was the major PAH components and at one site it represented 65.4 % of the total PAHs. Samples of the oil refinery site were more genotoxic in the SCGE assay than samples from the heavy diesel vehicles traffic site, despite the fact that both sites contain almost similar amount of PAHs. The opposite was true for the mutagenicity in the Ames test. This could be due to the nature of the EOM in both sites. These findings confirm the genotoxic potency of the PM10 organic extracts to which urban populations are exposed.

Particulate Matter From Saudi Arabia Induces Genes Involved in Inflammation, Metabolic Syndrome and Atherosclerosis

“…The city has stationary (power plant, airport, oil refinery, industries) and mobile (over 1.4 million cars) sources of air pollution. While an early study by (Nasralla 1983) concluded that concentrations of airborne particulates and other pollutants in Jeddah often exceeded air quality standards, a more recent study by (Elassouli et al 2007) reported that PM 10 in the city of Jeddah routinely exceeds the average hourly standard for PM 10 established by the Presidency of Meteorology and Environment in Saudi Arabia, which is 80 µg/m 3 .…”

Evaluation of the Effects of Airborne Particulate Matter on Bone Marrow-Mesenchymal Stem Cells (BM-MSCs): Cellular, Molecular and Systems Biological Approaches

“…Airborne PMs collected from Jeddah city in Saudi Arabia, contained high levels of Cr, Mn, Sr, Co, As, Pb, Cd, Ni and Va and were implicated in many, allergic, inflammatory, genetic and epigenetic disorders [20,[30][31][32][33]. In the current study, we evaluated the direct effects of these PMs on cellular functions, especially on the stem cells (BM-MSCs), using two different sizes of (PM2.5 and PM10).…”

Traffic ‐and Industry‐Related Air Pollution Exposure Assessment in an Asian Megacity

“…The above described concentrations were comparable to the values observed in Lahore [73] and quite higher than the reference studies. [74,75] The information about ionic profile is not only important for source apportionment studies but also understanding of tropospheric chemistry. For this purpose, Javed et al [45] determined the fraction of water-soluble cations and anions in the particulate samples collected in Faisalabad from May 2012 to , respectively.…”