Acute toxicity of parabens and their chlorinated by‐products with Daphnia magna and Vibrio fischeri bioassays

Abstract

The acute toxicity of 21 parabens and their chlorinated derivatives was investigated by means of two toxicity bioassays: Daphnia magna immobilization test and the inhibition of bioluminescence of Vibrio fischeri. The median effective concentration (EC(50)) values of the tested parabens ranged from 2.2 to 62 mg l(-1) in the D. magna test and from 0.0038 to 5.9 mg l(-1) in the V. fischeri test at 15 min after exposure. The toxicity of dichlorinated methyl- and n-propylparaben, the most commonly used preservatives in cosmetics, toward D. magna was 3.9- and 2.8-fold that of their corresponding parent compounds. Toxicity toward D. magna showed a linear relationship with log P, indicating that toxicity increases with increasing hydrophobicity. On the other hand, the correlations of toxicity toward V. fischeri with hydrophobicity and with the degree of chlorination were poor. In addition, the results of the present study indicated that the V. fischeri test was more sensitive than the D. magna test for the determination of the acute toxicity of parabens. A complete assessment of the ecological and toxicological risks of parabens may require the examination of chlorinated parabens as well as the parent pollutants, as described in the present study.

Occurrence and human exposure of parabens and their chlorinated derivatives in swimming pools

“…In addition, due to the active phenolic hydroxyl groups, parabens can be easily transformed to mono-and di-chlorinated derivatives in chlorinated water (Terasaki et al 2012;Westerhoff et al 2005). Therefore, parabens may react with free chlorine to form chlorinated parabens during disinfection of swimming pool water, which are more stable in environment and more toxic than the corresponding parent parabens (Bledzka et al 2014;Terasaki et al 2009). These compounds may continuously accumulate and increase in swimming pools (Zwiener et al 2007).…”

Spatial distribution, temporal variation and risks of parabens and their chlorinated derivatives in urban surface water in Beijing, China

“…However, most of them were mainly concentrated on the improvement of analytical methods, and only a single sampling campaign was performed in one or several rivers, making the robustness of their conclusions to be compromised. Additionally, due to the lack of standards, limited data was available on the presence of chlorinated parabens in surface water, which are considerably more stable in environment and more toxic to aquatic organisms than their corresponding parent parabens (Bledzka et al, 2014;Terasaki et al, 2009b). Moreover, there are relatively few studies on PHBA, the main metabolite and hydrolysis product of all parabens, in surface water (Blanco et al, 2009).…”

“…Nevertheless, chlorinated parabens and PHBA may be two noteworthy ways of the introduction of parabens into the aquatic environment (Haman et al, 2015). In order to better understand the behavior of parabens in surface water, the chlorinated derivatives and metabolite should be simultaneously determined (Terasaki et al, 2009b).…”

Occurrence, fate and risk assessment of parabens and their chlorinated derivatives in an advanced wastewater treatment plant

“…Therefore, PHBA can be still regarded as estrogenic, so its occurrence and fate should be included in future studies. Moreover, with the active phenolic hydroxyl groups, parabens can be easily transformed to chlorinated derivatives in chlorinated water [21], which are considerably more stable in environment and more toxic to aquatic organisms than the corresponding parent compounds [1,22]. To the best of our knowledge, there are only very scarce data available on the presence and levels of PHBA and chlorinated derivatives in the WWTPs [23].…”