Short-lived reactive components substantially contribute to particulate matter oxidative potential
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Exposure to airborne particulate matter (PM) has been attributed to millions of deaths annually. However, the PM components responsible for observed health effects remain unclear. Oxidative potential (OP) has gained increasing attention as a key property that may explain PM toxicity. Using online measurement methods that impinge particles for OP quantification within seconds, we reveal that 60 to 99% of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and OP in secondary organic aerosol and combustion-generated PM have a lifetime of minutes to hours and that the ROS activity of ambient PM decays substantially before offline analysis. This implies that current offline measurement methods substantially underestimate the true OP of PM. We demonstrate that short-lived OP components activate different toxicity pathways upon direct deposition onto reconstituted human bronchial epithelia. Therefore, we suggest that future air pollution and health studies should include online OP quantification, allowing more accurate assessments of links between OP and health effects.
Date Issued
2025-03-21
Date Acceptance
2025-02-13
Citation
Science Advances, 2025, 11 (12)
ISSN
2375-2548
Publisher
American Association for the Advancement of Science
Start Page
eadp8100
Journal / Book Title
Science Advances
Volume
11
Issue
12
Copyright Statement
Copyright © 2025 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (CC BY). https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
License URL
Identifier
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/40106561
Subjects
Particulate Matter
Humans
Reactive Oxygen Species
Oxidation-Reduction
Air Pollutants
Oxidative Stress
Aerosols
Air Pollution
Publication Status
Published
Coverage Spatial
United States
Article Number
eadp8100
Date Publish Online
2025-03-19