Effect-Directed Analysis of Endocrine Disruptors in Aquatic Ecosystems

Abstract

The topic of endocrine disruption in the aquatic environment is a clear example of a problem-driven research area. Field observations of endocrine abnormalities in wild life have prompted the growth of scientific attention and concern about the topic. Multiple studies have reported the presence of endocrine disrupting activities in various compartments of the aquatic environment, without, at the time, knowing the cause of the observations.The application of effect-directed analysis (EDA) has shown to be a valuable approach in investigating the nature of the compounds responsible for endocrine disrupting activities in environmental samples. Various research groups have applied EDA approaches and thereby successfully identified compounds responsible for endocrine disrupting effects. The research field of endocrine disruption is thus one of the research areas that has extensively experienced the benefits of EDA. This chapter describes the issue of endocrine disruption in the aquatic environment and discusses examples of the application of EDA for the identification of responsible compounds.

Photocatalytic Degradation of Estriol Using Iron-Doped TiO2 under High and Low UV Irradiation

“…Natural hormones (e.g., estrone (E1), 17β-estradiol (E2), and estriol (E3)) as ECs are susceptible of persisting and bioaccumulating in the environment, and could induce endocrine disruption in humans and wildlife (vertebrates [3][4][5] and invertebrates [6,7]). Natural attenuation, drinking water purification, and conventional municipal wastewater treatment processes are either incapable or only partially capable of removing estrogens from water [8].…”

Testing Endocrine Disruption in Biota Samples: A Method to Remove Interfering Lipids and Natural Hormones

“…The 1 mL of extract together with the sample vial rinsed with 0.5 mL of DCM was injected onto the GPC columns, which were eluted with DCM at a flow rate of 10 mL/min. Based on literature , and the GPC elution profile of the test compounds in the spiking mixture (data not shown), the 16.5−24 min GPC fraction should contain the majority of compounds in the test mixture. This collection window was prolonged for the fish extracts (eel and mullet: 16.5−27 min; pangasius 16.5−32 min) to obtain better recoveries for low-molecular-weight compounds (e.g., 3.4.5-trichlorophenol).…”

“…The advantage of testing biota instead of abiotic compartments (water or sediment) is that bioavailability, bioaccumulation, and possible metabolization of the compounds are also included. In the near future, testing biota samples in in vitro bioassays may be applied in effect-directed analysis (EDA) studies to identify the compounds responsible for the endocrine-disrupting (ED) potency in biota and in toxicity profiling studies to determine location-specific hazards. We focused our study on measuring two different types of endocrine activities in biota extracts, i.e., thyroid-hormone-like and (anti)androgenic activities.…”

“…Although chemical monitoring for ED compounds in aquatic biota provides ultimate information on exposure concentrations of individual compounds, chemical analysis alone cannot predict biological and mixture effects of the chemicals . In vitro bioassays can be used complementary to instrumental analysis to screen environmental samples more completely for contaminants with specific ED mode of actions , .…”

Bioanalytical Tools in Water Quality Assessment

“…So-called 'effect-directed analysis' (EDA) can be used in category 1 bioassays to identify the bioactive components of a complex mixture in a water sample (Houtman et al, 2011;Brack et al, 2016). In EDA, a water sample or extract that is bioactive can be fractionated and the individual fractions re-tested for bioactivity (Figure 13.6).…”