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Updated: Nov 28, 2025

High Content Screening Analysis to Evaluate the Toxicological Effects of Harmful and Potentially Harmful Constituents HPHC
Published on: May 10, 2016
Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in indoor environments are still imposing carcinogenic risk
Mengjing Wang1, Shenglan Jia1, Suk Hyun Lee2
1School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, 639798, Singapore; Nanyang Environment and Water Research Institute, Nanyang Technological University, 1 Cleantech Loop, CleanTech One, 637141, Singapore.
Abstract:
Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are among the most health-relevant air pollutants. Herein, we conducted meta-analysis and experimental validation to evaluate PAHs in our surroundings and carcinogenic risks. We summarized the occurrence of PAHs in outdoors and indoors from 131 studies with 6,766 samples collected in different countries in 1989-2019. The global weighted-median concentration in outdoor air, indoor air and dust of ΣPAHs were 142 ng/m3, 369 ng/m3 and 10,201 ng/g; respectively. ΣPAHs have decreased in indoor air but remained steady in outdoor air and indoor dust. More carcinogenic PAHs in indoor/outdoor air was observed in Asia, while in dust was North America. Monte-Carlo simulation further showed indoor sources for children's exposure from dust and air can exceed outdoor. To further validate the health effect of PAHs from indoors, 15 more recent indoor dust samples were collected to examine their mutagenicity. The results showed that ΣPAHs were found to be significantly correlated with mutagenicity potency in the dust sample metabolically activated with liver S9 subcellular fraction and likely accounted for 0.42-0.50 of the mutagenic activity. Our findings indicated that PAHs are still likely to have carcinogenic activity in indoor environments and exposure risk of children to indoor dust should be emphasized.
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