Measured soil concentrations are often used as input in ecological uptake models to estimate the concentrations of chemicals in various organisms. In this study, modeled and measured plant and animal concentrations were compared to evaluate the validity of various uptake modeling approaches for different groups of chemicals. The models used measured soil concentration data collected during a remedial investigation at an environmentally diverse Superfund site in California to estimate metal and organic chemical plant tissue concentrations. These modeled plant tissue concentrations were then used as intake concentrations to estimate tissue concentrations in herbivores, and the resulting modeled herbivore tissue concentrations were used as intake concentrations to estimate tissue concentrations in predators. Measured chemical concentrations were determined by collecting and chemically analyzing surface soil samples and collocated plants, so that soil concentrations and tissue concentrations could be correlated. Small mammals were also sampled at the sites, as close to the location of soil and plant collection as possible. These field data were then compared with modeled plant and animal tissue concentrations. For metals, the exposure models consistently overpredicted measured tissue concentrations for both plants and animals at high soil concentrations (those exceeding "background") and underpredicted tissue concentrations at low soil concentrations. In contrast, the measured dioxin concentrations in plants and animals were consistently greater than those predicted from the models across the range of detected soil concentrations, by approximately two orders of magnitude.
The nutrient removal efficiency of two integrated constructed wetlands (ICWs) installed at commercial wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) in Norfolk, UK, is assessed-the River Ingol ICW (1 year old) and the River Mun ICW (5 years old). Analysing water samples collected across the ICWs between February and September 2019, significant reductions in both effluent nutrient concentration and load were recorded. At the River Mun ICW, mean nitrate and phosphate concentrations were reduced by ~63% across the wetland, whilst nutrient loadings were reduced by ~57%. At the River Ingol ICW, mean nitrate and phosphate concentrations were reduced by ~30%, whilst nutrient loadings were reduced by ~70%. Economically, the total capital cost of both ICWs was comparable at £31-39 per person served. Overall, this study demonstrates ICWs can significantly reduce the eutrophication risk associated with WWTP discharges and can do so whilst providing a cost-effective alternative to conventional tertiary wastewater treatment.
Autosomal recessive Alport syndrome can arise from a mutation in either of the genes COL4A3 and COL4A4 on chromosome 2, which encode, respectively, the alpha 3 and alpha 4 chains of Type IV collagen. This report describes a mutation in COL4A3 in a girl who presented at age 5 with hematuria and proteinuria, lacking any family history of renal disease. Renal biopsy at age 8 showed immunoglobulin A nephropathy and Alport syndrome. Sensorineural deafness developed during adolescence, and the patient's renal disease progressed to terminal renal failure by age 20. She received a living related donor renal allograft at age 20 and developed antiglomerular basement membrane nephritis of the allograft 8 months after transplantation. Amplification and sequencing of exon 5 of COL4A3 (counting from the 3' end of the gene) revealed a 7-base-pair deletion, producing a shift of the reading frame and the creation of a premature stop codon. Each parent was heterozygous for the normal and mutant exon 5 sequences. This mutation in COL4A3 would result in the loss of 222 amino acids from the carboxy-terminal noncollagenous domain of the alpha 3(IV) chain. The mutant chain would be unable to form trimers with other Type IV collagen alpha chains. In addition, the mutant chain would lack the Goodpasture epitope, which resides in the carboxy-terminal noncollagenous domain of the alpha 3(IV) chain. The absence of this epitope may underly the subsequent development of anti-glomerular basement membrane nephritis in the allograft.
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