Abstract: Reliable studies on to the particle deposition in the respiratory tract and further particle translocation are of great value not only to risk assessment of inhalation toxicology but also to improve efficiency in drug delivery of inhalation therapies. But there is an important gap in health-particle matter (PM) investigations comprising low-dose exposures with organic aerosols. Polymeric monodisperse microspheres seem to be perspective model for aerosol investigations due to organic matter, nonbiodegradability, controllable size from several nm to several μm, possibility of surface modification by negative (-COOH) or positive (-NH2) functional groups, as well as by designing core-shell structures with desirable chemistry. However ultra-small size, ultra-low concentrations and organic matter of the aerosol have made direct detection of particles inhaled under ambient conditions impossible to date. Due to strong analytical limitations the majority of PM health effect investigations are based on techniques that use intratracheal instillation instead of inhalation, and even when inhalation takes place PM concentrations are much greater 100 μg/m3. Accelerator mass spectrometry is firstly shown in this work to be applicable for studying the penetration of organic aerosols, inhaled by laboratory mice at ultra-low concentration [1]. We synthesized two series of polystyrene (PS) microspheres ‒ 225 and 80 nm in size, composed of 14C-labeled styrene, for testing them as model organic aerosols. Styrene was synthesized from 14C-methanol with radioactivity 40 MBq. 14C-PS microspheres were obtained by emulsifier-free emulsion polymerization of 14C-styrene initiated by K2S2O8 in aqueous media. We have shown that particles 80 nm in size with a concentration of 104 pcscm-3 of inhaled air remained in the mice lungs for at least six months after exposure (the data is not published yet). [1] E.V. Parkhomchuk, D.G. Gulevich, A.I. Taratayko, A.M. Baklanov, A.V. Selivanova, T.A. Trubitsyna, I.V. Voronova, P.N. Kalinkin, A.G. Okunev, S.A. Rastigeev, V.V. Parkhomchuk, V.A. Reznikov. Ultrasensitive detection of inhaled organic aerosol particles by accelerator mass spectrometry. Chemosphere (2016) 159, 80-88.

Cite: Parkhomchuk E.V. , Kalinkin P.N. , Prokopyeva E.A. , Baklanov A.M. , Taratajko A.I. , Rastigeev S.A. , Parkhomchuk V.V. , Babina K. , Kuleshov D.V. , Solovʹeva E.I. , Vorobyeva E.E. , Dralyiuk R.I.
14C-Polystyrene Microspheres, Synthesized from C-14 Methanol and Detected by Accelerator Mass-Spectrometer, for Biomedical and Aerosol Studies
13th International Symposium on the Synthesis and Applications of Isotopes and Isotopically Labelled Compounds 03-07 Jun 2018