Association of endocrine‐disrupting chemicals with total organic carbon in riverine water and suspended particulate matter from the Pearl River, China

Abstract

Abstract-The distribution of endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) and its relationship with dissolved and particulate organic carbon (DOC and POC) was investigated in selected rivers of the Pearl River Delta, South China. The aqueous concentrations (average; ng/L) and particulate concentrations (average; ng/g, dry wt) for 4-tert-octylphenol (OP), 4-nonylphenol (NP), bisphenol A (BPA), and estrone (E1) were in the ranges of not detectable to 153 (31.8), 276 to 2,457 (1,178), 8.4 to 628 (161), and less than 1.5 to 11.5 (3.2), respectively, and 4.4 to 402 (98.1), 342 to 12,053 (4,922), 12.3 to 758 (128), and not detectable to 14.4, respectively. The highly significant correlation of EDCs with DOC and POC, and the similar regression slopes, implied the critical importance of DOC and POC on the distribution, transport, and fate of EDCs in the aquatic environment. The in situ particle-water partition coefficients (log K OC ) for OP (4.89 AE 0.41), NP (5.05 AE 0.33), and BPA (4.34 AE 0.50) were close to those reported by other field studies, but one to two orders of magnitude higher than those predicted with n-octanol-water partition coefficient (K OW ). The higher K OC values were attributed to the combined effects of low EDC concentrations, nonlinear sorption, and heterogeneity of POC and DOC. Moreover, a regression between in-situ K OC and K OW for phenolic xenoestrogens was observed (log K OC ¼ 0.625 Â log K OW þ 2.28, r 2 ¼ 0.99), suggesting that hydrophobicity contributed predominantly to the overall sorption of OP, NP, and BPA. Environ. Toxicol. Chem. 2012;31:245631: -246431: . # 2012

Seasonal variation and partitioning of endocrine disrupting chemicals in waters and sediments of the Pearl River system, South China

“…1). However, the data in January 2007 and January 2008 had been published in the previous papers and thus were cited here (Gong et al, 2009(Gong et al, , 2012. All the samples were collected into 10-L amber glass bottles using a stainless steel bucket, and were filtered through precombusted glass fiber filters (GF/F, 0.7 mm pore size) to separate suspended particles upon transport to the laboratory.…”

“…The analytical methods for the extraction, purification, derivatization, and instrumental analysis have been published elsewhere (Gong et al, 2009(Gong et al, , 2012. Briefly, EDCs were extracted from the water samples with Oasis HLB cartridges, which were conditioned sequentially with 5 mL of ethyl acetate, 5 mL of methanol, and 15 mL of HCl (pH ¼ 3) prior to use.…”

“…Many investigations on the occurrence, distribution, and fates of EDCs were carried out recently (Belfroid et al, 1999;Isobe et al, 2001;Kolpin et al, 2002;Shao et al, 2002;Jin et al, 2004;Gong et al, 2009Gong et al, , 2012Barber et al, 2015). The phenolic xenoestrogens such as alkylphenols (APs) and bisphenol A (BPA) in river water were at the concentrations up to mg/L, while steroidal estrogens (e.g.…”

Combined effects of estrogenic chemicals with the same mode of action using an estrogen receptor binding bioassay

“…However, if a variety of ligands exist simultaneously, the behavior between them and ERs may change due to their different concentrations and receptor binding abilities, both of which are critical influences on the final effects. The nine selected substances have frequently been found, by chemical analysis, at relatively high concentrations in the aquatic system of China, and all of them have been associated with endocrine disrupting effects (Gong et al, 2012;Lei et al, 2009;Liu et al, 2012;Lu et al, 2010;Sun et al, 2008;Wang et al, 2012;Yan et al, 2012;Ye et al, 2012). Thus, we chose them as representative estrogen-like chemicals that are present in the water environment.…”

“…Firstly, Gong et al (2012) studied the distribution of EDCs in water from the Pearl River in China. They found that the mean concentrations (ng/L) of E1, 4-t-OP, 4-NP and BPA were 3.2, 31.8, 1178 and 161, respectively (S14 in RMD), while the EEQ values (ng/L) were 0.23, 4.4 × 10 −3 , 0.19 and 1.6 × 10 −3 after conversion.…”