Ricerc@Sapienza

Dierent acellular assays were developed to measure particulate matter’s (PM) oxidative potential (OP), a metric used to predict the ability of PM in generating oxidative stress in living organisms. However, there are still fundamental open issues regarding the complex redox equilibria among the involved species which could include reducing compounds. The aim of this study was the pilot application of the 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) assay to PM in order to evaluate the presence of reducing species.

Several acellular methods, defined as oxidative potential (OP) assays, have been developed to assess the particulate matter (PM) oxidative capacity and they are considered as predictors of the ability of dust to generate oxidative stress in living organisms. There is no agreement regarding the most representative assay to measure the OP of PM (Ayres et al., 2008), but methods mostly used on the PM filter extracts are the dithiothreitol (DTT; Cho et al., 2005), the 2?,7?-dichlorofluorescin (DCFH; Hung et al., 2001) and the ascorbic acid (AA; Stoeger et al., 2008) assays.

Different acellular assays were recently developed to measure particulate matter (PM) oxidative potential (OP) [1]. Common OP methods include dithiothreitol assay (OPDTT), ascorbic acid assay (OPAA) and 2?,7?-dichlorofluorescin (OPDCFH). OP assays can provide observations on the relationship between PM characteristics and its ability to generate oxidative stress. However, along with oxidizing species, experimental OP values suggest the possible presence of reducing species in PM. Therefore, the obtained data drives the need to deepen knowledge on redox properties of PM.

Different acellular assays were developed to measure particulate matter’s (PM) oxidative potential (OP) to predict the PM ability to generate oxidative stress in living cells and organisms. However, there are still fundamental unresolved issues regarding the influence of assay’s design and the tests’ operative condition on OP obtained results. An additional important point is related to the stability of the species: short-life oxidant species can react and redox equilibria among PM native species could occur during both the sample storage and the extraction phase.