A database of avian blood spot examinations for exposure of wild birds to environmental toxicants: the DABSE biomonitoring project

Abstract

DABSE, a database for avian blood spot examination for exposure to toxicants, is a new biomonitoring project in wild birds that has the goal of providing reference values of harmful agents, as measured in whole blood stored as dried blood spots. Once these "normal" values have been established, the diagnosis of environmental contaminant-mediated ill-health (such as manifestations of sickness, increased mortality, a reduction in population, poor breeding success, abnormal behavior) in an individual bird or in a population could be facilitated by comparing exposure values in the investigation to reference values of the same species in the database. One might then identify the cause and pave the way for a mitigating response. The toxicant component of DABSE is being examined at the low ng ml(-1) level in 200 µl of whole blood. As these analyses are invariably very costly, an effort has been made to lower these costs and so enable more testing by quantitating representative compounds as markers for the whole group. These markers are invariably found in birds' blood at the highest concentration of all the constituents in that group. The toxicant groups comprise:- (a) elements-arsenic, cadmium, lead, mercury and selenium; (b) organochlorine pesticides, markers being p,p'-DDT, p,p'-DDE, β-HCH, HCB and oxychlordane; (c) polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), the marker being congener 153; (d) polybrominated diphenyl esters (PBDEs), the marker being congener 47; (e) perfluorinated compounds (PFCs), the markers being perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA). DABSE will be expanded to determine exposure to infectious diseases and perhaps acute toxicoses.

Examination of Eurasian Griffon Vultures (Gyps fulvus fulvus) in Israel for Exposure to Environmental Toxicants Using Dried Blood Spots

“…This study is in the DABSE project of wild bird biomonitoring (Shlosberg et al 2011) and demonstrates the value of such a ''toxicological screen'' in the investigation of wild bird health problems. The main impediment of biomonitoring in wild birds is often the considerable cost involved in performing analyses for these five groups of environmental contaminants.…”

“…Whole blood concentrations are therefore approximately twice the plasma or serum concentrations for analytes that are not bound on or in erythrocytes (Shlosberg et al 2011). However, it should be noted that …”

“…Cards sent to the United States from Israel for analysis were pathogeninactivated by heating the cards at 60°C for 30 min, a procedure that was found to not markedly decrease recovery of analytes from spiked blood spots on cards. This is the protocol used for blood sampling and dried blood spot storage in DABSE (a database of avian blood spots for exposure to toxicants) biomonitoring project of wild birds (Shlosberg et al 2011). …”

Cryogenic zone compression GC-HRTOFMS for the measurement of PCB-153 and DDE in 20 μL serum samples

“…[18][19][20] Despite the fact that these methods required a signicantly lower amount of blood, compared to the typical amounts necessary in most human biomonitoring studies (5-75 mL of serum 21 ), they were still requiring sample volumes of 100 mL or more, a quantity hardly obtained by a simple nger or heel prick.…”

Dried blood spots in toxicology: from the cradle to the grave?

“…DBS sampling of animals allows the collection of samples at remote areas and in non-specialized centres, where no special equipment like a centrifuge is available and where proper storage of a blood sample is difficult (Trudeau et al, 2007). A recent initiative in the context of monitoring exposure of animals to toxic substances, somewhat paralleling the efforts done for evaluating a newborn's exposure to environmental contaminants via DBS, is DABSE ("Database for avian blood spot examination") (Shlosberg et al, 2011a). This biomonitoring project aims at setting up reference values for exposure of wild birds to five groups of environmental contaminants: trace elements, organochlorine pesticides, PCBs, PFCs and PBDEs.…”