Identification of agonist and antagonist activities of glucocorticoid and mineralocorticoid receptors in Taiwanese rivers using bioassays and LC-MS/MS

Abstract

Endocrine disrupting compounds present in the aquatic environment could cause side effect on aquatic organisms Previous studies have focused on estrogenic and androgenic compounds in the environment However natural and synthetic (anti)glucocorticoids and (anti)mineralocorticoids which are frequently used as pharmaceuticals to treat various symptoms of human diseases can also be released into the aquatic environment In this study recombinant yeast bioassays were used to detect mineralocorticoid receptor (MR) and glucocorticoid receptor (GR) disrupting activities in water and suspended solids (SS) samples collected from 9 Taiwanese rivers Also liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) was used to quantify potential MR and GR disrupting chemicals in the aquatic environment in Taiwan Bioassays results showed that no MR and GR agonist activities were detected in river samples In contrast MR antagonist activity was detected in water and SS samples of all target rivers (

Date of Award	2015 Aug 22
Original language	English
Supervisor	Pei-Hsin Chou (Supervisor)