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Airborne load of Cassia pollen in West Bengal, eastern India: its atmospheric variation and health impact

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Abstract

A Burkard personal volumetric sampler was used at Sriniketan, a town about 150 km northwest of Calcutta, in the state of West Bengal, in eastern India to record the frequency of three common airborne Cassia pollen types, Cassia tora, Cassia occidentalis, and Cassia fistula for two consecutive years (2004–2006). Correlation was made between the meteorological factors and the pollen concentration in the atmosphere. The study reports Cassia pollinosis by in vivo skin prick test in respiratory allergic patients. The highest positive reactions were exhibited by C. tora (34.7 %), C. fistula (33.3 %), and C. occidentalis (28.5 %). The allergic potential of these was investigated by in vitro enzyme linked immunosorbent assay test. Their protein components were analyzed by sodium dodecyl sulfate–polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, in the range of 15.8–81.5 kDa. In C. occidentalis and C. fistula, 11 bands were found, while it was 10 in C. tora. The results show that the Cassia pollen occur significantly in the atmosphere with the potential to elicit an allergic response in susceptible patients.

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Acknowledgments

Thanks are due to the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, India for providing fellowship to the first author (MMH). Authors are also thankful to Dr. I. Roy, Dr. S. Chatterjee, and staff members of the Institute of Child Health, Kolkata for their kind help in performing clinical investigation. Thanks to Prof. S. Gupta Bhattacharya and Mr. Chanchal Chakraborty of the Department of Plant Biology, Bose Institute, Calcutta, India for his technical assistance in SEM.

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  1. Jyotshna Mandal

    Present address: Institute of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies, University of Zurich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, 8057, Zurich, Switzerland

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Botany, Visva-Bharati University, Santiniketan, 731235, West Bengal, India

    Mir Musaraf Hussain & Kashinath Bhattacharya

  2. Division of Plant Biology, Bose Institute, 93/1 Acharya Prafulla Chandra Road, Calcutta, 700 009, India

    Jyotshna Mandal

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  1. Mir Musaraf Hussain
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Correspondence to Kashinath Bhattacharya.

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Hussain, M.M., Mandal, J. & Bhattacharya, K. Airborne load of Cassia pollen in West Bengal, eastern India: its atmospheric variation and health impact. Environ Monit Assess 185, 2735–2744 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-012-2744-4

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