Dataset Information

Mechanisms of lung toxicity induced by biomass burning aerosols.

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND:Carbonaceous aerosols emitted from indoor and outdoor biomass burning are major risk factors contributing to the global burden of disease. Wood tar aerosols, namely, tar ball particles, compose a substantial fraction of carbonaceous emissions, especially from biomass smoldering. However, their health-related impacts and toxicity are still not well known. This study investigated the toxicity of the water-soluble fraction of pyrolyzed wood tar aerosols in exposed mice and lung epithelial cells. RESULTS:Mice exposed to water-soluble wood tar aerosols showed increased inflammatory and oxidative stress responses. Bronchial epithelial cells exposed to the same water-soluble wood tar aerosols showed increased cell death with apoptotic characteristics. Alterations in oxidative status, including changes in reactive oxygen species (ROS) levels and reductions in the expression of antioxidant genes related to the transcription factor Nrf2, were observed and were confirmed by increased levels of MDA, a lipid peroxidation adduct. Damage to mitochondria was observed as an early event responsible for the aforementioned changes. CONCLUSIONS:The toxicity and health effect-related mechanisms of water-soluble wood tar were investigated for the first time in the context of biomass burning. Wood tar particles may account for major responses such as cell death, oxidative stress, supression of protection mechnaisms and mitochondrial damaged cause by expsoure to biomass burning aerosols.

SUBMITTER: Pardo M

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6971884 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Mechanisms of lung toxicity induced by biomass burning aerosols.

Pardo Michal M Li Chunlin C He Quanfu Q Levin-Zaidman Smadar S Tsoory Michael M Yu Qingqing Q Wang Xinming X Rudich Yinon Y

Particle and fibre toxicology 20200120 1

<h4>Background</h4>Carbonaceous aerosols emitted from indoor and outdoor biomass burning are major risk factors contributing to the global burden of disease. Wood tar aerosols, namely, tar ball particles, compose a substantial fraction of carbonaceous emissions, especially from biomass smoldering. However, their health-related impacts and toxicity are still not well known. This study investigated the toxicity of the water-soluble fraction of pyrolyzed wood tar aerosols in exposed mice and lung e ...[more]

PMID: 31959190

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Project description:Every year, a dense smoke haze covers a large portion of South America originating from fires in the Amazon Basin and central parts of Brazil during the dry biomass burning season between August and October. Over a large portion of South America, the average aerosol optical depth at 550 nm exceeds 1.0 during the fire season, while the background value during the rainy season is below 0.2. Biomass burning aerosol particles increase scattering and absorption of the incident solar radiation. The regional-scale aerosol layer reduces the amount of solar energy reaching the surface, cools the near-surface air, and increases the diffuse radiation fraction over a large disturbed area of the Amazon rainforest. These factors affect the energy and CO2 fluxes at the surface. In this work, we applied a fully integrated atmospheric model to assess the impact of biomass burning aerosols in CO2 fluxes in the Amazon region during 2010. We address the effects of the attenuation of global solar radiation and the enhancement of the diffuse solar radiation flux inside the vegetation canopy. Our results indicate that biomass burning aerosols led to increases of about 27% in the gross primary productivity of Amazonia and 10% in plant respiration as well as a decline in soil respiration of 3%. Consequently, in our model Amazonia became a net carbon sink; net ecosystem exchange during September 2010 dropped from +101 to -104 TgC when the aerosol effects are considered, mainly due to the aerosol diffuse radiation effect. For the forest biome, our results point to a dominance of the diffuse radiation effect on CO2 fluxes, reaching a balance of 50-50% between the diffuse and direct aerosol effects for high aerosol loads. For C3 grasses and savanna (cerrado), as expected, the contribution of the diffuse radiation effect is much lower, tending to zero with the increase in aerosol load. Taking all biomes together, our model shows the Amazon during the dry season, in the presence of high biomass burning aerosol loads, changing from being a source to being a sink of CO2 to the atmosphere.

Project description:This study seeks to understand the compositional details of N-containing aromatic compounds (NACs) emitted during biomass burning (BB) and their contribution to light-absorbing organic carbon (OC), also termed brown carbon (BrC). Three laboratory BB experiments were conducted with two U.S. pine forest understory fuels typical of those consumed during prescribed fires. During the experiments, submicron aerosol particles were collected on filter media and subsequently extracted with methanol and examined for their optical and chemical properties. Significant correlations (p < 0.05) were observed between BrC absorption and elemental carbon (EC)/OC ratios for individual burns data. However, the pooled experimental data indicated that the BB BrC absorption depends on more than the BB fire conditions as represented by the EC/OC ratio. Fourteen NAC formulas were identified in the BB samples, most of which were also observed in simulated secondary organic aerosol (SOA) from photo-oxidation of aromatic VOCs with NOX. However, the molecular structures associated with the identical NAC formula from BB and SOA are different. In this work, the identified NACs from BB are featured by methoxy and cyanate groups, and are predominately generated during the flaming phase. The mass concentrations of identified NACs were quantified using authentic and surrogate standards, and their contributions to bulk light absorption of solvent extractable OC were also calculated. The contributions of identified NACs to organic matter (OM) and BrC absorption were significantly higher in flaming-phase samples than those in smoldering-phase samples, and correlated with EC/OC ratio (p < 0.05) for both individual burns and pooled experimental data, indicating that the formation of NACs from BB largely depends on burn conditions. The average contributions of identified NACs to overall BrC absorption at 365 nm ranged from 0.087 ± 0.024 to 1.22 ± 0.54%, 3 - 10 times higher than their mass contributions to OM (0.023 ± 0.0089 to 0.18 ± 0.067%), so the NACs with light absorption identified in this work from BB are likely strong BrC chromophores. Further studies are warranted to identify more light-absorbing compounds to explain the unknown fraction (> 98%) of BB BrC absorption.

Dataset Information

Mechanisms of lung toxicity induced by biomass burning aerosols.

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Mechanisms of lung toxicity induced by biomass burning aerosols.

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