TY - JOUR
T1 - Estrogenicity of chemical mixtures revealed by a panel of bioassays
AU - Gomez, Livia
AU - Niegowska, Magdalena
AU - Navarro, Anna
AU - Amendola, Luca
AU - Arukwe, Augustine
AU - Ait-Aissa, Selim
AU - Balzamo, Stefania
AU - Barreca, Salvatore
AU - Belkin, Shimshon
AU - Bittner, Michal
AU - Blaha, Ludek
AU - Buchinger, Sebastian
AU - Busetto, Maddalena
AU - Carere, Mario
AU - Colzani, Luisa
AU - Dellavedova, Pierluisa
AU - Denslow, Nancy
AU - Escher, Beate I.
AU - Hogstrand, Christer
AU - Khan, Essa Ahsan
AU - König, Maria
AU - Kroll, Kevin J.
AU - Lacchetti, Ines
AU - Maillot-Marechal, Emmanuelle
AU - Moscovici, Liat
AU - Potalivo, Monoca
AU - Sanseverino, Isabella
AU - Santos, Ricardo
AU - Schifferli, Andrea
AU - Schlichting, Rita
AU - Sforzini, Susanna
AU - Simon, Eszter
AU - Shpigel, Etai
AU - Sturzenbaum, Stephen
AU - Vermeirssen, Etienne
AU - Viarengo, Aldo
AU - Werner, Inge
AU - Lettieri, Teresa
N1 - Funding Information:
RECETOX authors were supported by RECETOX Research Infrastructure grant LM2018121 from the Czech Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports ; the platform CITEPro (Chemicals in the Environment Profiler) funded by the Helmholtz Association for performing the ER-GeneBLAZer assay; INERIS authors were supported by the French Ministry of Ecology ( P181-DRC60 ) and AQUAREF .
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 The Authors
Copyright:
Copyright 2021 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2021/9/1
Y1 - 2021/9/1
N2 - Estrogenic compounds are widely released to surface waters and may cause adverse effects to sensitive aquatic species. Three hormones, estrone, 17β-estradiol and 17α-ethinylestradiol, are of particular concern as they are bioactive at very low concentrations. Current analytical methods are not all sensitive enough for monitoring these substances in water and do not cover mixture effects. Bioassays could complement chemical analysis since they detect the overall effect of complex mixtures. Here, four chemical mixtures and two hormone mixtures were prepared and tested as reference materials together with two environmental water samples by eight laboratories employing nine in vitro and in vivo bioassays covering different steps involved in the estrogenic response. The reference materials included priority substances under the European Water Framework Directive, hormones and other emerging pollutants. Each substance in the mixture was present at its proposed safety limit concentration (EQS) in the European legislation. The in vitro bioassays detected the estrogenic effect of chemical mixtures even when 17β-estradiol was not present but differences in responsiveness were observed. LiBERA was the most responsive, followed by LYES. The additive effect of the hormones was captured by ERα-CALUX, MELN, LYES and LiBERA. Particularly, all in vitro bioassays detected the estrogenic effects in environmental water samples (EEQ values in the range of 0.75–304 × EQS), although the concentrations of hormones were below the limit of quantification in analytical measurements. The present study confirms the applicability of reference materials for estrogenic effects' detection through bioassays and indicates possible methodological drawbacks of some of them that may lead to false negative/positive outcomes. The observed difference in responsiveness among bioassays – based on mixture composition - is probably due to biological differences between them, suggesting that panels of bioassays with different characteristics should be applied according to specific environmental pollution conditions.
AB - Estrogenic compounds are widely released to surface waters and may cause adverse effects to sensitive aquatic species. Three hormones, estrone, 17β-estradiol and 17α-ethinylestradiol, are of particular concern as they are bioactive at very low concentrations. Current analytical methods are not all sensitive enough for monitoring these substances in water and do not cover mixture effects. Bioassays could complement chemical analysis since they detect the overall effect of complex mixtures. Here, four chemical mixtures and two hormone mixtures were prepared and tested as reference materials together with two environmental water samples by eight laboratories employing nine in vitro and in vivo bioassays covering different steps involved in the estrogenic response. The reference materials included priority substances under the European Water Framework Directive, hormones and other emerging pollutants. Each substance in the mixture was present at its proposed safety limit concentration (EQS) in the European legislation. The in vitro bioassays detected the estrogenic effect of chemical mixtures even when 17β-estradiol was not present but differences in responsiveness were observed. LiBERA was the most responsive, followed by LYES. The additive effect of the hormones was captured by ERα-CALUX, MELN, LYES and LiBERA. Particularly, all in vitro bioassays detected the estrogenic effects in environmental water samples (EEQ values in the range of 0.75–304 × EQS), although the concentrations of hormones were below the limit of quantification in analytical measurements. The present study confirms the applicability of reference materials for estrogenic effects' detection through bioassays and indicates possible methodological drawbacks of some of them that may lead to false negative/positive outcomes. The observed difference in responsiveness among bioassays – based on mixture composition - is probably due to biological differences between them, suggesting that panels of bioassays with different characteristics should be applied according to specific environmental pollution conditions.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85105094454&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.147284
DO - 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.147284
M3 - Article
SN - 0048-9697
VL - 785
JO - Science of the Total Environment
JF - Science of the Total Environment
M1 - 147284
ER -