(Phys.org) —A Friday report in Nature News handles a well-publicized topic, the air quality in Beijing. That may seem like rather old news, but the Friday report has new information on the city's troubling air quality. Scientists were looking for information about the potential for pathogens and allergens in Beijing's air and they turned to "metagenomics" as their study tool. The research team described what they were seeking in their paper, "Inhalable Microorganisms in Beijing's PM2.5 and PM10 Pollutants during a Severe Smog Event," for Environmental Science & Technology. "While the physical and chemical properties of PM pollutants have been extensively studied, much less is known about the inhalable microorganisms. Most existing data on airborne microbial communities using 16S or 18S rRNA gene sequencing to categorize bacteria or fungi into the family or genus levels do not provide information on their allergenic and pathogenic potentials. Here we employed metagenomic methods to analyze the microbial composition of Beijing's PM pollutants during a severe January smog event."
↧