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Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) play an important role in the formation of ground-level ozone and secondary organic aerosol (SOA), and they have been key issues in current air pollution prevention and control in China. Considerable attention has been paid to industrial activities due to their large and relatively complex VOCs emissions. The present research aims to provide a comprehensive review on whole-process control of industrial VOCs, which mainly includes source reduction, collection enhancement and end-pipe treatments. Lower VOCs materials including water-borne ones are the keys to source substitution in industries related to coating and solvent usage, leak detection and repair (LDAR) should be regarded as an efficient means of source reduction in refining, petrochemical and other chemical industries. Several types of VOCs collection methods such as gas-collecting hoods, airtight partitions and others are discussed, and airtight collection at negative pressure yields the best collection efficiency. Current end-pipe treatments like UV oxidation, low-temperature plasma, activated carbon adsorption, combustion, biodegradation, and adsorption-combustion are discussed in detail. Finally, several recommendations are made for future advanced treatment and policy development in industrial VOCs emission control. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pentachlorophenol (PCP) is a widespread, persistent environmental contaminant, and it is enzymatically activated to form a reactive metabolite, tetrachloro-1,4-benzoquinone (TCBQ). To our knowledge, there is no information about TCBQ toxicity on embryonic stem cells. Here, we demonstrated that TCBQ induced significantly apoptosis of mouse embryonic stem cells in a concentration-dependent manner. We also showed that TCBQ elevated genomic 5-hydroxymethylcytosine (5hmC) by affecting ten-eleven translocation (Tet) dioxygenases in mouse embryonic stem cells. We further investigated whether Tet dioxygenases were implicated in TCBQ-induced apoptosis. By depleting all three dioxygenases (Tet1-3), we found that Tet dioxygenases slightly inhibited both early and late apoptosis induced by TCBQ at a low concentration (30 μmol/L). Meanwhile, treated by TCBQ at higher concentrations (40 and 50 μmol/L), the total percentage of apoptotic cells was not affected by Tet dioxygenases. However, Tet dioxygenases tended to arrest mouse ES cells to be at early apoptotic stage and to reduce the cells to enter later apoptotic stage. These results indicate that Tet dioxygenases play a role in shaping TCBQ-induced apoptosis in mouse embryonic stem cells. Our study provides new insights into the toxicology of PCP and its reactive metabolite TCBQ. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Double-strand breaks (DSBs), one class of the most harmful DNA damage forms that bring elevated health risks, need to be repaired timely and effectively. However, an increasing number of environmental pollutants have been identified to impair DSB repair from various mechanisms. Our previous work indicated that the formation of unsaturated RecA nucleofilaments plays an essential role in homology recombination (HR) pathway which can accurately repair DSBs. In this study, by developing a benzonase cutting protection assay and combining it with traditional electrophoretic mobility shift assay (EMSA) analysis, we further investigated the assembly patterns of four RecA mutants that display differential DSB repair ability and ATPase activity. We observed that the mutants (G204S and S69G) possessing both ATP hydrolysis and DSB repair activities form unsaturated nucleofilaments similar to that formed by the wild type RecA, whereas the other two ATP hydrolysis-deficient mutants (K72R and E96D) that fail to mediate HR form more compacted nucleofilaments in the presence of ATP. These results establish a coupling of ATPase activity and effective DSB repair ability via the assembly status of RecA nucleofilaments. This linkage provides a potential target for environmental factors to disturb the essential HR pathway for DSB repair by suppressing the ATPase activity and altering the assembly pattern of nucleofilaments. Image, graphical abstract [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In China, volatile organic compound (VOC) control directives have been continuously released and implemented for important sources and regions to tackle air pollution. The corresponding control requirements were based on VOC emission amounts (EA), but never considered the significant differentiation of VOC species in terms of atmospheric chemical reactivity. This will adversely influence the effect of VOC reduction on air quality improvement. Therefore, this study attempted to develop a comprehensive classification method for typical VOC sources in the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region (BTH), by combining the VOC emission amounts with the chemical reactivities of VOC species. Firstly, we obtained the VOC chemical profiles by measuring 5 key sources in the BTH region and referencing another 10 key sources, and estimated the ozone formation potential (OFP) per ton VOC emission for these sources by using the maximum incremental reactivity (MIR) index as the characteristic of source reactivity (SR). Then, we applied the data normalization method to respectively convert EA and SR to normalized EA (NEA) and normalized SR (NSR) for various sources in the BTH region. Finally, the control index (CI) was calculated, and these sources were further classified into four grades based on the normalized CI (NCI). The study results showed that in the BTH region, furniture coating, automobile coating, and road vehicles are characterized by high NCI and need to be given more attention; however, the petro-chemical industry, which was designated as an important control source by air quality managers, has a lower NCI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]