Mutagenic and carcinogenic effects of airborne particulate matter from polluted areas on human and rodent tissue cultures.

Global extract of airborne particulate matter from an industrialized area contains chemical substances which exert a dose-dependent mutagenic and carcinogenic activity on mammalian cells in vitro. Mutagenic activity was demonstrated by induction of "sister chromatid exchanges" in human lymphocyte cultures and in Chinese hamster lung cell line V 79. Furthermore, "point mutations" at the HGPRT-locus were induced in V 79 cells. Carcinogenicity was shown by "enhancement" of malignant cell transformation of Syrian hamster kidney cultures exposed to global extract and thereafter infected with Simian virus 40. When considering a human respiratory volume of 12-14 cbm of air per day we have to emphasize that amounts of global extract equivalent to particulates from 0.5-1 cbm clearly showed mutagenic and carcinogenic activity. This relationship is visualized on Fig. 1.