Short-lived reactive components substantially contribute to particulate matter oxidative potential

  • Steven J. Campbell*
  • , Battist Utinger
  • , Alexandre Barth
  • , Zaira Leni
  • , Zhi Hui Zhang
  • , Julian Resch
  • , Kangwei Li
  • , Sarah S. Steimer
  • , Catherine Banach
  • , Benjamin Gfeller
  • , Francis P.H. Wragg
  • , Joe Westwood
  • , Kate Wolfer
  • , Nicolas Bukowiecki
  • , Mika Ihalainen
  • , Pasi Yli-Pirilä
  • , Markus Somero
  • , Miika Kortelainen
  • , Juho Louhisalmi
  • , Martin Sklorz
    • Hendryk Czech, Sebastiano di Bucchianico, Thorsten Streibel, Mathilde N. Delaval, Christopher Ruger, Nathalie Baumlin, Matthias Salathe, Zheng Fang, Michal Pardo, Sara D’Aronco, Chiara Giorio, Zongbo Shi, Roy M. Harrison, David C. Green, Frank J. Kelly, Yinon Rudich, Suzanne E. Paulson, Olli Sippula, Ralf Zimmermann, Marianne Geiser, Markus Kalberer*
*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

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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.

Original languageEnglish
Article numbereadp8100
JournalScience advances
Volume11
Issue number12
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 21 Mar 2025

Funding

Acknowledgments: We thank the following funding sources for funding this work as listed below. Funding: this work was supported by the following: SnF grant 200021_192192 (to M.Ka.); ePSRC UKRi Postdoc guarantee funding grant eP/X030237/1 (to S.J.C.); european Research Council (eRC grant 279405) (to M.Ka.); natural environment Research Council (neRC) (ne/K008218/1 and ne/n007190/1) (to M.Ka.); eurochamp-2020 (to M.Ka.); PhotOchemiStry, oxidative pOtential and tOxicity of Urban aeroSol (POiSOnOUS) (to C.G.); sampling campaign, funded by Supporting tAlent in ReSearch@University of Padova (StARS-StG MOCAA) (to C.G.); horizon europe Framework Program (eASvOlee, no. 101095457) (to Y.R.); AXA Research Fund through a 2017-liFe-Postdoc fellowship (to S.S.S. and M.Ka.); horizon 2020 project UltRhAS and the helmholtz international laboratory aeroheAlth nr. interlabs-0005 (to h.C. and R.Z.); and natural environment Research Council (neRC) ne/n007190/1 (to R.M.h.). Author contributions: Conceptualization: S.J.C., M.Ka., F.J.K., B.U., C.B., M.P., Z.l., d.G., M.Ko., O.S., M.G., Z.Z., and S.d.B. investigation: S.J.C., J.W., B.G., h.C., P.Y.-P., B.U., C.G., C.B., K.l., J.R., S.S.S., R.M.h., A.B., Z.l., J.l., Z.F., d.C.G., M.Ko., M.n.d., O.S., F.P.h.W., Z.Z., and S.d.B. validation: S.J.C., J.W., Y.R., C.G., C.B., K.l., A.B., Z.l., d.C.G., M.Ka., Z.Z., and S.d.B. Formal analysis: S.J.C., J.W., h.C., B.U., J.R., S.S.S., A.B., Z.l., Z.Z., and d.C.G. Methodology: S.J.C., K.W., n.Ba., B.U., K.l., R.M.h., A.B., M.Sa., Z.F., S.e.P., M.Ka., O.S., F.P.h.W., and S.d.B. Resources: n.Ba., C.G., A.B., M.Sa., Z.Z., and S.e.P. visualization: S.J.C., n.Ba., B.U., C.B., K.l., J.R., A.B., Z.l., and M.Ka. Supervision: S.J.C., F.J.K., Y.R., S.e.P., d.C.G., M.Ka., and S.d.B. Project administration: S.J.C., Y.R., C.G., Z.l., S.e.P., M.Ka., O.S., and S.d.B. Writing—original draft: S.J.C., B.U., K.l., J.R., Z.l., M.G., and M.Ka. Writing—review and editing: S.J.C., F.J.K., Z.S., n.Ba., C.G., C.B., K.l., S.S.S., R.M.h., M.Sa., M.P., Z.l., S.e.P., and O.S. Funding acquisition: S.J.C., Z.S., Y.R., C.G., R.M.h., S.e.P., d.C.G., M.Ka., O.S., and S.d.B. data curation: S.J.C., Y.R., C.G., A.B., and d.C.G. Software: F.P.h.W. Competing interests: the authors declare they have no competing interests. Data and materials availability: All data needed to evaluate the conclusions in the paper are present in the paper and/or the Supplementary Materials. the dataset shown in figures and tables in this manuscript is publicly available at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.24942696.v1. We thank the following funding sources for funding this work as listed below. This work was supported by the following: SNF grant 200021_192192 (to M.Ka.); EPSRC UKRI Postdoc guarantee funding grant EP/X030237/1 (to S.J.C.); European Research Council (ERC grant 279405) (to M.Ka.); Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) (NE/K008218/1 and NE/N007190/1) (to M.Ka.); Eurochamp-2020 (to M.Ka.); PhotOchemIStry, oxidative pOteNtial and tOxicity of Urban aeroSol (POISONOUS) (to C.G.); sampling campaign, funded by Supporting TAlent in ReSearch@University of Padova (STARS-StG MOCAA) (to C.G.); Horizon Europe Framework Program (EASVOLEE, no. 101095457) (to Y.R.); AXA Research Fund through a 2017-LIFE-PostDoc fellowship (to S.S.S. and M.Ka.); Horizon 2020 project ULTRHAS and the Helmholtz International Laboratory aeroHEALTH Nr. InterLabs-0005 (to H.C. and R.Z.); and Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) NE/N007190/1 (to R.M.H.).

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