Mutagens and carcinogens in size-classified air particulates of a Northern Italian town

This research was designed to examine the presence of mutagenic/carcinogenic compounds in urban airborne particulates sampled with the inhalable PM-10 high volume sampler in two different streets of Brescia, a heavily industrialized town in northern Italy, using the Tradescantia/micronucleus test and a bacterial mutagenicity test Kado test, a more sensitive version of the Ames test. In addition, the Tradescantiarmicronucleus test was used for in situ monitoring of gaseous pollutants in other urban areas of Brescia and in two car tunnels, one with heavy car traffic in Perugia, a town in central Italy, and one in Brescia with moderate traffic. The Tradescantia-micronucleus test carried out on extracts of airborne particulates gave positive results only for the sample collected in the traffic-congested street where also higher bacterial mutagenicity was found. The in situ monitoring of the urban areas with the Tradescantiarmicronucleus test always gave negative results. Monitoring carried out in the two car tunnels showed a significant increase in micronuclei frequency only in flowers exposed in the smaller and more polluted tunnel.