Geographic Differences in Persistent Organic Pollutant Levels of Yellowfin Tuna

Abstract

Background:Fish are a source of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) in the human diet. Although species, trophic level, and means of production are typically considered in predicting fish pollutant load, and thus recommendations of consumption, capture location is usually not accounted for.Objectives:Yellowfin tuna (Thunnus albacares) are harvested from across the world’s oceans and are widely consumed. Here, we determined geographic variation in the overall mass, concentration, and composition of POPs in yellowfin and examined the differences in levels of several POP congeners of potential relevance to human health.Methods:We sampled dorsal muscle of 117 yellowfin tuna from 12 locations worldwide, and measured POP levels using combined liquid or gas chromatography and mass spectrometry according to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency standard procedures.Results:POP levels varied significantly among sites, more than 36-fold on a mass basis. Individual fish levels ranged from 0.16 to 138.29ng/g wet weight and lipid-normalized concentrations from 0.1 to 12.7μM. Levels of 10 congeners that interfere with the cellular defense protein P-glycoprotein, termed transporter interfering compounds (TICs), ranged from 0.05 to 35.03ng/g wet weight and from 0.03 to 3.32μM in tuna lipid. Levels of TICs, and their individual congeners, were strongly associated with the overall POP load. Risk-based analysis of several carcinogenic POPs indicated that the fish with the highest levels of these potentially harmful compounds were clustered at specific geographic locations.Conclusions:Capture location is an important consideration when assessing the level and risk of human exposure to POPs through ingestion of wild fish. https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP518

Review of and Recommendations for Monitoring Contaminants and their Effects in the San Francisco Bay−Delta

“…Similar TIC effects have been reported for interactions of environmental chemicals with solute-carrier transporters (Bain et al 1997;Kleinow et al 2004;Fardel et al 2012;Bircsak et al 2013). In larger species, such as Yellowfin Tuna, TIC lipid levels as high as 3.3 µM have been reported (Nicklisch et al 2017), which is well within the range of individual and pollutant mixture IC50 values toward P-glycoprotein (Nicklisch et al 2016). Chemicals that act as TICs include organochlorine pesticides, brominated flame retardants, and polychlorinated biphenyls, all of which have been found to accumulate in fish, including several species endemic to the Bay−Delta (Greenfield et al 2002;Hunt et al 2008), at levels that could impair transport function.…”

Potentially Heterogeneous Cross-Sectional Associations of Seafood Consumption with Diabetes and Glycemia in Urban South Asia

“…The geographic heterogeneity of associations between fish consumption and diabetes might reflect the extensive spatial variation in nutrient and contaminant composition of fish [3][4][5][6][7]. Some of these contaminants, particularly organochlorine pesticides such as hexachlorocyclohexane (HCH), were implicated as risk factors for diabetes [8].…”

Location Is Everything: The Pollutants in Yellowfin Tuna Depend on Where It’s Caught

“… 1 In a new study in EHP , researchers investigated the extent to which contaminant levels within a single commercially important fish species varied depending on where the fish was caught. 2 Their results suggest that capture location may be an important yet overlooked variable when assessing the risk of exposure to POPs from eating wild fish.…”

“…These commonly eaten fish are found around the world, but they do not travel far, 5 making them a likely sentinel of geographic variation in POP levels. 2 …”

“…The 10 least contaminated fish, taken from the Northwest and Southwest Pacific Ocean, the South China Sea, and the Indian Ocean, had pollutant levels of wet weight. 2 …”