TY - JOUR
T1 - Exploring potential contributors to endocrine disrupting activities in Taiwan's surface waters using yeast assays and chemical analysis
AU - Chou, Pei Hsin
AU - Lin, Yi Ling
AU - Liu, Tong Cun
AU - Chen, Kuang Yu
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was fully supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan ( NSC 98-2221-E-006-020-MY3 and NSC 102-2221-E-006-004-MY3 ). The authors thank Prof. Tomonari Matsuda, Prof. Takashi Yagi, and Prof. Masanobu Kawanishi from Kyoto University, Japan, and Osaka Prefecture University, Japan, for providing the recombinant yeast strains. We are also grateful to the staff in Sustainable Environment Research Laboratories, National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan, and Dr. Mei-Chun Tseng from Institute of Chemistry, Academia Sinica, Taiwan, for their LC–MS/MS assistance.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 Elsevier Ltd.
PY - 2015/11/1
Y1 - 2015/11/1
N2 - Surface waters serve as sinks for anthropogenic contaminants, including naturally occurring hormones and a variety of synthetic endocrine active substances. To investigate the presence of endocrine active contaminants in the aquatic environment in Taiwan, river water and suspended solids were analyzed by yeast assays to examine the distribution of estrogenic, androgenic, and aryl hydrocarbon receptor agonist activities. The results showed that dry-season river samples exhibited strong estrogenic and aryl hydrocarbon receptor agonist activities, but no androgenic activity was detected. Owing to the ubiquitous detection of estrogenic activities in Taiwan's surface waters, samples were further subjected to liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) analysis for quantification of selected estrogenic compounds. LC-MS/MS results indicated that natural estrogens, such as estrone and 17β-estradiol were often the most contributing compounds for the bioassay-derived estrogenic activities due to their strong estrogenic potencies and high detection frequencies, whereas high concentrations of bisphenol A and nonylphenol also posed a threat to the aquatic ecosystems in Taiwan. Water samples eliciting strong estrogenic activities were further fractionated using high performance liquid chromatography, and significant estrogenic activities were detected in fractions containing estrone, 17β-estradiol, 17α-ethynylestradiol, and bisphenol A. Also, the presence of unidentified estrogenic compounds was found in few river water samples. Further identification of unknown endocrine active substances is necessary to better protect the aquatic environment in Taiwan.
AB - Surface waters serve as sinks for anthropogenic contaminants, including naturally occurring hormones and a variety of synthetic endocrine active substances. To investigate the presence of endocrine active contaminants in the aquatic environment in Taiwan, river water and suspended solids were analyzed by yeast assays to examine the distribution of estrogenic, androgenic, and aryl hydrocarbon receptor agonist activities. The results showed that dry-season river samples exhibited strong estrogenic and aryl hydrocarbon receptor agonist activities, but no androgenic activity was detected. Owing to the ubiquitous detection of estrogenic activities in Taiwan's surface waters, samples were further subjected to liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) analysis for quantification of selected estrogenic compounds. LC-MS/MS results indicated that natural estrogens, such as estrone and 17β-estradiol were often the most contributing compounds for the bioassay-derived estrogenic activities due to their strong estrogenic potencies and high detection frequencies, whereas high concentrations of bisphenol A and nonylphenol also posed a threat to the aquatic ecosystems in Taiwan. Water samples eliciting strong estrogenic activities were further fractionated using high performance liquid chromatography, and significant estrogenic activities were detected in fractions containing estrone, 17β-estradiol, 17α-ethynylestradiol, and bisphenol A. Also, the presence of unidentified estrogenic compounds was found in few river water samples. Further identification of unknown endocrine active substances is necessary to better protect the aquatic environment in Taiwan.
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U2 - 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2015.08.016
DO - 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2015.08.016
M3 - Article
C2 - 26295540
AN - SCOPUS:84940931045
SN - 0045-6535
VL - 138
SP - 814
EP - 820
JO - Chemosphere
JF - Chemosphere
M1 - 16408
ER -