Exposure Studies of Living Organisms: How the PolluRisk Platform is Simulating at the Laboratory Urban Air Quality and its Health Impacts
PATRICE COLL, Antonin Bergé, Elie Al Marj, Mathieu Cazaunau, Aline Gratien, Lucy Gerard, Bénédicte Picquet-Varrault, Spyros Ν. Pandis, Sophie Lanone, The PolluRisk Team,
LISA UMR CNRS 7583, France Abstract Number: 439
Working Group: Health-Related Aerosols
AbstractIt has been widely accepted that there are clear relations between exposure to atmospheric pollution and Health impacts (epidemiology and toxicology studies). This explicit demonstration has been supported – as an illustration - regarding mortality and morbidity effects of long-term exposure to low-level PM2.5, BC, NO
2 and O
3 (
analysis of European cohorts in the Elapse project).
We have developed the PolluRisk platform, that reproduces for days the atmospheric phases (gases/aerosols) similar those of cities like Paris or Beijing. It is mainly resulting from the coupling of an atmospheric simulation chamber ( cesam.cnrs.fr ) and of exposure devices able to host preclinical models (isolators from Noroit® company). The principle of such an atmospheric simulation is described on the platform website : pollurisk.eu
The experimental protocol consists in the continuous injection of primary pollutants (NOx, COVs mix, SO
2, soot, inorganic salts and potentially mineral dust particles if needed) low concentrations (ppb levels) in air in the chamber. With a 4 hours residence time in the chamber, the mixture is exposed to an artificial solar irradiation, allowing secondary pollutants such as O
3, NO
2, HCHO, etc. as well as complex polyfunctional organics including Secondary Organic Aerosol (SOA) to be formed, reaching a chemical steady state. Isolators are then “fed” with a constant flow of such a mixture. The “reference” isolator is filled up with filtered air only.
We will illustrate the results regarding 2 experiments (one simulating a summer Paris atmosphere and one simulating a winter Paris atmosphere, both for a duration of 7 days). We will present 1/ the SOA characterization including Organics, Nitrate or Sulfate content 2/ the functionalized particulate compounds observed 3/ some biological characterizations of the exposed mice lungs. These results clearly state the interest of Atmospheric Simulation chambers to support such exposure studies devoted to Health Impacts of Air Quality.