Air-pollutant particulate matter 2.5 (PM2.5)-induced inflammation and oxidative stress in diseases: Possible therapeutic approaches

Today, air pollution is one of the greatest threats to organismal healthspan. The environmental air of earth is contaminated with a wide variety of artificially generated pollutants like fine particulate matter (PM2.5) emitting from industry, fuel engine vehicles, biomass combustion, fumes from blasting, crop residue burning, and wildfire. The air pollutant PM2.5 induces massive oxidative stress and inflammation, the major contributors in initiation and progression of numerous diseases including pulmonary, cardiovascular, renal, hepatic, reproductive, neurological, mental, and accelerated biological aging. The provocative question is the following: how can we solve this air pollution associated problem? As it is not realistic to clean the environment at once from artificially generated toxic pollution, initiatives have been undertaken to develop novel therapeutic approaches to control air-pollutant-induced oxidative stress and inflammation and associated devastating diseases. The primary goal of this review article is to discuss systematically the key findings of numerous recent preclinical studies documenting first, the role of air pollutant PM2.5 in augmentation of inflammation, oxidative stress, and associated diseases; and second, the efficacies of different natural and synthetic compounds in amelioration of PM2.5-induced oxidative stress, inflammation, pyroptosis, and associated pathologies. Further investigation on the safety of these compounds will be helpful to select effective and non-toxic compound(s) for clinical trial and drug development.