Mutagenic and cytotoxic effects of exhaust particulate matter of biodiesel compared to fossil diesel fuel.

The mutagenic and cytotoxic effects of diesel engine exhaust (DEE) from a modern passenger car using rapeseed oil methyl esters (RME, biodiesel) as fuel were directly compared to DEE of diesel fuel (DF) derived from petroleum. Combustion particulate matter was collected on glass fiber filters coated with polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) from an exhaust dilution tunnel using three different engine test cycles on a chassis dynamometer. Filters were extracted with dichloromethane in a soxhlet apparatus for 12 h. The mutagenicity of the extracts was tested in the Salmonella typhimurium/mammalian microsome plate-incorporation assay using strains TA97a, TA98, TA100, and TA102. The toxicity to the established cell line L929 (mouse lung fibroblasts) was investigated in the neutral red assay. In the tester strains TA98 and TA100 a significant increase of mutations resulted for the particle extracts of both fuels, but for DF the revertants were significantly higher compared to RME. The highest levels of revertants were observed in tests including a cold start phase. This was probably due to incomplete combustion in the cold engine and a lower conversion rate of the cold catalytic converter. Testing with activated liver S9 fraction induced a slightly lower increase of revertants in most experiments. TA97a and TA102 showed no significant enhancement of spontaneous mutations. In the FTP-75 test cycle RME extracts showed slightly higher toxic effects to the L929 cells than DF, whereas in the other tests no significant differences were observable. These results indicate a higher mutagenic potency of DEE of DF compared to RME. This is probably due to the lower content of polycyclic aromatic compounds (PAC) in RME exhaust, although the emitted masses of RME were higher in most test procedures applied in this study.