Real-Time Monitoring of Air Pollution Health Impacts Using Breath-Borne Gaseous Biomarkers from Rats

Abstract

Offline techniques are adopted for studying air pollution health impacts, thus failing to provide in situ observations. Here, we have demonstrated their real-time monitoring by online analyzing an array of gaseous biomarkers from rats' exhaled breath using an integrated exhaled breath array sensor (IEBAS) developed. The biomarkers include total volatile organic compounds (TVOC), CO 2 , CO, NO, H 2 S, H 2 O 2 , O 2 , and NH 3 . Specific breath-borne VOCs were also analyzed by a gas chromatography-ion mobility spectrometer (GC-IMS). After real-life ambient air pollution exposures (2 h), the pollution levels of PM 2.5 and O 3 were both found to significantly affect the relative levels of multiple gaseous biomarkers in rats' breath. Eleven biomarkers, especially NO, H 2 S, and 1-propanol, were detected as significantly correlated with PM 2.5 concentration, while heptanal was shown to be significantly correlated with O 3 . Likewise, significant changes were also detected in multiple breath-borne biomarkers from rats under labcontrolled O 3 exposures with levels of 150, 300, and 1000 μg/m 3 (2 h), compared to synthetic air exposure. Importantly, heptanal was experimentally confirmed as a reliable biomarker for O 3 exposure, with a notable dose−response relationship. In contrast, conventional biomarkers of inflammation and oxidative stress in rat sera exhibited insignificant differences after the 2 h exposures. The results imply that breath-borne gaseous biomarkers can serve as an early and sensitive indicator for ambient pollutant exposure. This work pioneered a new research paradigm for online monitoring of air pollution health impacts while obtaining important candidate biomarker information for PM 2.5 and O 3 exposures.