Soil contamination with indium oxide nanoparticles (InO-NPs) is a challenge for plant growth and productivity. Despite InO-NPs toxicity, their effects on plant growth and metabolism are largely unknown, particularly under future climate CO (eCO). Therefore, the InO-NPs toxicity and stress mitigating impact of eCO in the young and old leaves of C3 (wheat) and C4 (sorghum) plants were investigated.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSoil contamination with indium (In) oxide nanoparticles (InO-NPs) threatens plant growth and development. However, their toxicity in plants under ambient (aCO) and elevated (eCO) conditions is scarcely studied. To this end, this study was conducted to investigate InO-NPs toxicity in the young and old leaves of C3 (barley) and C4 (maize) plants and to understand the mechanisms underlying the stress mitigating impact of eCO.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFParasitic weeds such as Phelipanche aegyptiaca pose one of the most significant environmental constraints to cropping systems worldwide. The influence of P. aegyptiaca upon host plants is well studied, nevertheless, how future climate CO (eCO) can affect P.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt J Environ Res Public Health
January 2019
Ground level ozone (₃) plays an important role in controlling the oxidation budget in the boundary layer and thus affects the environment and causes severe health disorders. Ozone gas, being one of the well-known greenhouse gases, although present in small quantities, contributes to global warming. In this study, we present a predictive model for the steady-state ozone concentrations during daytime (13:00⁻17:00) and nighttime (01:00⁻05:00) at an urban coastal site.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt J Environ Res Public Health
October 2018
Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in street dust pose a serious problem threatening both the environment and human health. Street dust samples were collected from five different land use patterns (traffic areas TRA, urban area URA, residential areas REA, mixed residential commercial areas MCRA and suburban areas SUA) in Jeddah, a Saudi coastal city, and one in in Hada Al Sham, a rural area (RUA). This study aimed to investigate the status, profile, sources of PAHs and estimate their human health risk.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt J Environ Res Public Health
December 2017
Data dealing with the assessment of heavy metal pollution in road dusts in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and its implication to human health risk of human exposure to heavy metals, are scarce. Road dusts were collected from five different functional areas (traffic areas (TA), parking areas (PA), residential areas (RA), mixed residential commercial areas (MCRA) and suburban areas (SA)) in Jeddah and one in a rural area (RUA) in Hada Al Sham. We aimed to measure the pollution levels of heavy metals and estimate their health risk of human exposure applying risk assessment models described by United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPolycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons contain a number of known carcinogenic compounds, and urinary biomarkers have been widely used as a measure of exposure but quantitative relationships with exposure variables have proved elusive. This study aimed to quantify the relationship between exposures to phenanthrene and pyrene from atmospheric and dietary sources with the excretion of 1-hydroxypyrene and hydroxyphenanthrenes in urine as biomarkers of exposure. The study population consisted of 204 male schoolchildren attending three schools in different parts of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia who provided urine samples on each of three consecutive days.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMeasurements of 14 polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) have been made in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, with a view to establishing the concentrations in this major city, and quantifying the contributions of major sources. Particulate and vapour forms have been sampled and analysed separately. The concentrations are compared to measurements from other sites in the Middle Eastern region and are towards the lower end of the range, being far lower than concentrations reported from Riyadh (Saudi Arabia), Assiut (Egypt) and Tehran (Iran) but broadly similar to those measured in Damascus (Syria) and higher than those measured in Kuwait.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn recent years, glycerol has become an attractive carbon source for microbial processes, as it accumulates massively as a by-product of biodiesel production, also resulting in a decline of its price. A potential use of glycerol in biotechnology is the synthesis of poly(3-hydroxypropionate) [poly(3HP)], a biopolymer with promising properties which is not synthesized by any known wild-type organism. In this study, the genes for 1,3-propanediol dehydrogenase (dhaT) and aldehyde dehydrogenase (aldD) of Pseudomonas putida KT2442, propionate-coenzyme A (propionate-CoA) transferase (pct) of Clostridium propionicum X2, and polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) synthase (phaC1) of Ralstonia eutropha H16 were cloned and expressed in the 1,3-propanediol producer Shimwellia blattae.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF