Abstract
In the last two decades, awareness grew on the matter of the impact of environment on human health. Contaminants sorbed onto soil and settled dust can be ingested and thus represent a hazard, particularly to young children, who play on the ground and bring their hands and objects to their mouth. Metal(loid)s and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are of concern as they are both carcinogenic to humans and ubiquitous in outdoor environments. The present study aims to assess the total and bioaccessible fractions of PAHs and metal(loid)s present in settled dust of four preschools located in industrial, urban, and suburban areas. On the one hand, children’s incremental life cancer risks (ILCR) were calculated according to ingestion pathway. On the other hand, the genotoxicities of the bioaccessible dust-bonded contaminants were determined on gastric cells. PAH concentrations ranged from 50.9 to 2267.3 ng/g, and the bioaccessible fraction represented 10.7% of the total in average. Metal(loid) concentration ranged from 12,430 to 38,941 µg/g, and the mean bioaccessibility was of 40.1%. Cancer risk ranged from 2.8.105 to 8.6.105, indicating that there is a potential cancer risk for children linked to the ingestion of settled dust. The inorganic bioaccessible fraction induced little DNA (< 20%TailDNA) and chromosomal damages (30% increase in micronuclei), whereas the organic bioaccessible fraction induced higher DNA (17–63%TailDNA) and chromosomal damages (88% increase in micronuclei). Such experimental approach needs to be deepen, as a tool complementary to cancer risk calculation, since the latter only lays on a set of targeted contaminants with known toxicity values.
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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the competitiveness clusters SAFE and EUROBIOMED for granting their label to our project. The authors would like to warmly acknowledge Franck Marot from ADEME for the fruitful scientific discussions. Mathieu Izard, from Atmo Sud, is also thanked for his sound advice for preschools recruitment and on-site sampling. The authors acknowledge Bernard Angeletti from CEREGE for technical support in MMs analyses and the masters’ work of Vanary Nhek, from Aix Marseille University, Laboratoire Chimie Environnement for her assistance in sampling and validating a method for the extraction of the bioaccessible fraction.
Funding
The Plan for Regional Environmental Health (PRSE-3) and the Regional Directorate for the Environment, Development and Housing (DREAL-PACA) co-funded this work. DRIIHM Cluster of Excellence (Labex DRIIHM, ANR-11-LABX-0010) and Excellence Initiative of Aix-Marseille University A*MIDEX (AMX-19-IET-012), both “Investissements d’Avenir” French Programs managed by the ANR, also provided financial support, together with the research federation ECCOREV. Rebecca Castel received a PhD grant from The French Agency for Ecological Transition (ADEME) and from France Southern Region (Région Sud) with our partner AtmoSud.
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Rebecca Castel, Yves Noack, Thierry Orsière, and Laure Malleret contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, formal analysis, and investigation were carried out by Rebecca Castel, Virginie Tassistro, Stéphanie Lebarillier, and Yves Noack. Data treatment and visualization were performed by Rebecca Castel, Nathalie Dupuy, and Laure Malleret. Laure Malleret, Thierry Orsière, and Yves Noack contributed to funding acquisition, supervision, and administration of the project. The original draft of the manuscript was written by Rebecca Castel. Laure Malleret, Thierry Orsière, and Yves Noack participated in the final writing—review and editing of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final version of the manuscript.
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Castel, R., Tassistro, V., Lebarillier, S. et al. Chemical and genotoxic characterization of bioaccessible fractions as a comprehensive in vitro tool in assessing the health risk due to dust-bound contaminant ingestion. Environ Sci Pollut Res (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-024-33248-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-024-33248-3