Inter-continental variability in the relationship of oxidative potential and cytotoxicity with PM<sub>2.5</sub> mass.
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 38898130.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-024-49649-4 and PMC identifier 11187120.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Most fine ambient particulate matter (PM<sub>2.5</sub>)-based epidemiological models use globalized concentration-response (CR) functions assuming that the toxicity of PM<sub>2.5</sub> is solely mass-dependent without considering its chemical composition. Although oxidative potential (OP) has emerged as an alternate metric of PM<sub>2.5</sub> toxicity, the association between PM<sub>2.5</sub> mass and OP on a large spatial extent has not been investigated. In this study, we evaluate this relationship using 385 PM<sub>2.5</sub> samples collected from 14 different sites across 4 different continents and using 5 different OP (and cytotoxicity) endpoints. Our results show that the relationship between PM<sub>2.5</sub> mass vs. OP (and cytotoxicity) is largely non-linear due to significant differences in the intrinsic toxicity, resulting from a spatially heterogeneous chemical composition of PM<sub>2.5</sub>. These results emphasize the need to develop localized CR functions incorporating other measures of PM<sub>2.5</sub> properties (e.g., OP) to better predict the PM<sub>2.5</sub>-attributed health burdens.
Medical subject headings
- Particulate Matter
- Air Pollutants