Airborne suspended particulates were collected by an Andersen high volume air sampler in a traffic area of Seoul from September 1990 to August 1991. Origanic matter extracted from particulates, their fractions, namely acidic, basic, neutral and carcinogenic subfractions (PAHs, nitroarenes) in neutral fractions were assayed for mutagenicity on TA98, TA100 and TA98NR deficient Salmonella strains, use of the pre-incubation method. The relative contribution to total mutanenicity of organic matters was highest in neutral fraction and was lowest in basic fraction. Among subfractions, that of neutral fraction was higher nitroarenes subfraction compared to PAHs subfraction. While the carcinogenic effect of benzo[a]pyrene was calculated as 0.96 persons/million persons based on unit risk estimates by extrapolation method, life time excess cancer risk estimate of EOM, neutral, PAH fraction based on their mutagenicity was calculated as 52, 42, 3.8 persons/million persons, respectively. These findings indicate that the mutagenic hazard of the partciculate, air organic complex mixture, may be dependent upon the mutagen composition in the particulate and interactions each of them. Therfore, health risk from air organic complex mixtures based on mutagenicity might be useful indicator for evaluation of actual risk.