Dsm 942

In the in vivo experiment, animals were exposed to spherical AgNPs of 20 ± 5 nm in diameter coated with bovine serum albumin (BSA) purchased from PlasmaChem (Berlin, Germany). The preparation of AgNPs was detailed in previous works [14 (link),15 (link)]. To summarize, 2 mg of AgNPs were dispersed in 800 μL of purified distilled water, forming the nanoparticle stock solution. The stock solution was sonicated for 10 min on ice using a probe sonicator (Branson, Danbury, CT, USA) with a total ultrasound energy of 420 J/m. After sonication, 100 μL of 15% BSA and 100 μL of 10× phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) were directly added to the solution. Additionally, the aggregation state of AgNPs was examined alongside the assessment of its zeta potential and hydrodynamic size. The characterization was conducted using scanning electron microscopy (DSM 942, Carl Zeiss, Göttingen, Germany) and transmission electron microscopy (JOEL 1200 EX II, JOEL, Tokyo, Japan). The outcomes of these analyses have previously been published [14 (link)]. The details pertaining to the AgNPs used in the in vivo experiment can be found in Table 1.

The powdered DEP-samples were fixed to scanning electron microscopy (SEM) holder with the Quick Drying Silver Paint (Agar, UK) conductive glue and coated with thin layer of Au (about 10 nm) using a vacuum evaporator (JEE-4X, JEOL, Japan) to assure conductivity, protect the sample from heat destruction and to keep real parameters of the observed details. The samples were examined in a DSM 942 scanning electron microscope (Zeiss, Germany) in a secondary electron (SE) mode. Microscope parameters were set to high voltage (HV) = 10 kV and working distance (WD) = 6 mm. The elements present in investigated samples were determined using the energy dispersive X-ray spectrometry (EDS) using Quantax 400 (Bruker, Germany) system set to HV = 15 kV and WD = 20 mm.

Physicochemical characterization of diesel exhaust particles was described in detail by Lankoff et al. (2017 ). Briefly, sample size distribution was measured by the Nanoparticle Tracking Analysis (NTA) with a NanoSight LM20 (NanoSight, Amesbury, UK), equipped with a sample chamber with a 640-nm laser. Zeta potential and polydispersity index were determined by DLS method at 25 °C in a folded capillary cell at 150 V and M3-PALS detection using non-invasive backscatter at 173° with an Avalanche photodiode, Q.E. > 50% at 633 nm (Malvern, Malvern Hills, UK). The shape of DEPs was analyzed by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) (JEOL 1200 EXII, JEOL, JAPAN) operating at an acceleration voltage of 120 kV. Elemental analysis of DEPs was performed by digital scanning electron microscopy (SEM) type DSM 942 (Zeiss, Germany) in the secondary electron (SE) mode using the energy dispersive X-ray spectrometry (EDS) with Quantax 400 (Bruker, Germany) system. Separation and analysis of PAHs from particulate extracts were described in detail by Czarnocka and Odziemkowska (2016 ). The content of 17 PAHs was measured by the Agilent 7890A GC System chromatograph coupled with a mass spectrometer MS 5975C using a low-polarity Rtx-5ms capillary column (30 m × 0.25 mm × 0.25 μm) (Restek, Bellefonte, PA, USA).