Abstract
With the development of medical technology, the quality for caring and prolonging human’s life is greatly improved, but the price is a lot of hospital wastes are produced. Incineration is a traditional method used in disposal of hospital waste. However, the emission of fly ashes is another environmental issue. In this work, the correlations between chemical components of PM in various particle sizes with the biological effects (cell viability, cytokine release and reactive oxygen species (ROS) generate) generated from human lung carcinoma epithelial cell line A549 exposing to PM emitted from a hospital solid waste were studied. According to aerodynamic diameter, four categories of PM were classified namely, “Total Particle” (TP; without particle size classification), “PM10-2.5”(diameter 2.5–10 μm), “PM2.5-1”(diameter 1–2.5 μm), and “PM1 “(diameter <1μm). We investigate (i) the physicochemical characteristics of particles (PM) such as elements, size distribution, water-soluble ions, and PAHs. (ii) the cytotoxicity of particles (PM) and the extract from PM e.g. water-soluble ions (i-PM)and PAHs(p-PM) towards A549 cell. Bivariate analysis and Student’s test (t-test) were applied to study the relationship between the PM chemical composition and the biological responses. The results show that water-soluble ions (cation + anion) were constituted about 80% in fractions. The smaller aerodynamic diameter of PM is observed, the higher PAHs content is found. Low molecular weight PAH (2 and 3 ring number of PAHs structure; MW: 128-178) was higher than the other medium (MMW; 4 ring number of PAHs structure; MW: 202-228) and high (HMW; 5 and 6 ring number of PAHs structure; MW: 252-278) molecular weight PAHs in each particles size, especially NaP and PA. In contrast, the content of heavy metal and major element in PM10-2.5 and PM2.5-1 are more than in PM1. Among TP, PM10-2.5, PM2.5-1 and PM1, PM10-2.5 induced more ROS and IL-8 secretion, and PM1 caused higher cell apoptosis. Compare the cytotoxicity of water-soluble inorganic ions and the organic PAHs, organic PAHs induced more significant cytotoxicity.