Experimental protocol over the 2 generations
DE is a complex mixture of hundreds of constituents in either a gas or particle form. Gaseous components of DE include carbon dioxide, oxygen, nitrogen, water vapour, carbon monoxide, nitrogen compounds, sulphur compounds, and numerous low-molecular-weight hydrocarbons (some of them individually known to be toxic, such as aldehydes, benzene, 1,3-butadiene, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and nitro-PAHS). The particles present in DE are known to be composed of center core of elemental carbon with absorbed organic compounds and small amounts of sulphate, nitrate, metals, and other trace elements [19 ]. The measured components of the exposure mixture in the present experiment are shown in Additional file