Format: ORAL

Rosa Prez-Badia1, Clara E. Pogner2, Celia Antunes3, Godfrey P. Apangu4, Nicolas Bruffaets5, Sevcan Celenk6, Antonella Cristofori7, Nestor Gonzlez-Roldn8, AgnieszkaGrinn-Gofron9, Beatriz Lara1, Mirela Lika10, Donat Magyar11, Moises Martnez-Bracero12, Lucia Muggia13, Babette Muyshondt4, David OConnor12, Alberto Pallavicini13, Alexandra M. Penha3, Helena Ribeiro14, Ana R. Costa.3, Zsfia Tischner11, Merita Xhetani10, Carsten A. Skjth15

1 Institute of Environmental Sciences, University of Castilla-La Mancha, Toledo, Spain 2 Unit Bioresources, Center of Health and Bioresources, AIT Austrian Institute of Technology GmbH, Tulln, Austria 3 Department of Medical and Health Sciences, School of Health and Human Development, University of Évora and Earth Sciences Institute (ICT), Évora, Portugal 4 Protecting Crops and the Environment, Rothamsted Research, Harpenden, U.K. 5 Mycology and Aerobiology, Sciensano, Brussels, Belgium 6 Bursa Uludag University, Arts and Science Faculty, Biology Department, Görükle-Bursa, Türkiye. 7 Research and Innovation Centre, Fondazione Edmund Mach, San Michele all'Adige, (TN), Italy 8 Pollen Laboratory, Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden 9 Institute of Biology, University of Szczecin, Szczecin, Poland 10 Department of Biology, Faculty of Natural Sciences, University of Tirana, Tirana, Albania 11 National Center for Public Health and Pharmacy, Budapest, Hungary 12 School of Chemical Sciences, Dublin City University, Dublin, Ireland 13 Department of Life Sciences, University of Trieste, Trieste, Italy 14 Department of Geosciences, Environment and Spatial Plannings, Faculty of Sciences, University of Porto and Earth Sciences Institute (ICT), Porto, Portugal. 15 Department of Environmental Science, iClimate, Aarhus University, Roskilde, Denmark

The importance of monitoring the concentration of pollen in the atmosphere has been widely demonstrated from the environmental, ecological and agronomic point of view, as well as from the perspective of human health, since allergenic pollen represents the most important cause of pollinosis globally. Traditionally, pollen concentrations in the air are estimated from analyses based on identification and quantification using optical microscopy. However, the classification of pollen types at the species level using this procedure is limited. This is due to the morphological characteristics of the pollen grains used for their recognition, often shared within genera, families, and even taxonomic orders. An alternative approach is the identification of pollen through molecular sequencing and DNA analysis. Different high-throughput sequencing (HTS) technologies have been used to massively analyse environmental DNA and therefore the airborne pollen. This process requires, before sequencing, the preparation and amplification of the specific library for each sequencing platform. Ion Torrent (ThermoFisher), GenapSys technology and above all Ilumina, represent several platforms that sequence with the metabarcoding procedure short DNA fragments (reads) up to a few hundred base pairs in length. Other platforms called third generation sequencing such as PromethION, GridION and MinION from Oxford Nanopore Technology and PacBio CCS from Pacific Biosciences, generate much longer reads (LR) than those obtained in the previous ones, however they are still little used in aerobiology. This study presents a review and the state of the art of airborne pollen studies based on metabarcoding and metagenomics, as well as the limitations of these molecular analyses. This study is conducted in the frame of Cost Action CA18226 (New approaches in detection of pathogens and aeroallergens) and has been carried out by the members of Working Group 2.