Effects of ozone and relative humidity on fluorescence spectra of octapeptide bioaerosol particles

Abstract The effects of ozone and relative humidity (RH) at common atmospheric levels on the properties of single octapeptide bioaerosol particles were studied using an improved rotating reaction chamber, an aerosol generator, an ultraviolet aerodynamic particle sizer (UVAPS), an improved single particle fluorescence spectrometer (SPFS), and equipments to generate, monitor and control the ozone and RH. Aerosol particles (mean diameter ~2 μm) were generated from a slurry of octapeptide in phosphate buffered saline, injected into the rotating chamber, and kept airborne for hours. Bioaerosols were sampled from the chamber hourly for the measurements of particle-size distribution, concentration, total fluorescence excited at 355-nm, and single particle fluorescence spectra excited at 266-nm and 351-nm under different controlled RH (20%, 50%, or 80%) and ozone concentration (0 or 150 ppb). The results show that: (1) Particle size, concentration, and the 263-nm-excited fluorescence intensity decrease at different rates under different combinations of the RH and ozone concentrations used. (2) The 263-nm-excited UV fluorescence (280–400 nm) decreased more rapidly than the 263-nm-excited visible fluorescence (400–560 nm), and decreased most rapidly when ozone is present and RH is high. (3) The UV fluorescence peak near 340 nm slightly shifts to the shorter wavelength (blue-shift), consistent with a more rapid oxidation of tryptophan than tyrosine. (4) The 351/355-nm-excited fluorescence (430–580 nm/380–700 nm) increases when ozone is present, especially when the RH is high. (5) The 351/355-nm-excited fluorescence increase that occurs as the tryptophan emission in the UV decreases, and the observation that these changes occur more rapidly at higher RH with the present of ozone, are consistent with the oxidation of tryptophan by ozone and the conversion of the resulting ozonides to N-formyl kynurenine and kynurenine.