Metabolites and Transformation Products of Pharmaceuticals in the Aquatic Environment as Contaminants of Emerging Concern

Abstract

Continuous degradation of an abiotic part of an environment as well as disruption of the homeostatic state of biota can be attributed to the increasing rate of human impact on the environment. An idea about the diversity of pollutants that can potentially appear in the environment can be gained by monitoring the amount of already existing chemicals and the rate of appearance of new ones. If a compound is known and in use it seems obvious that in the end it will be introduced into the environment. Figure 1.1 shows a classification of environmental pollutants. Analysts have concentrated mainly on: Non-identified pollutants-pollutants that exist in the environment for a long time but due either to lack of proper analytical procedures, insufficient development of analytical devices, or lack of new methodological parameters have not yet been identified.

Surface interactions and degradation of a fluoroquinolone antibiotic in the dark in aqueous TiO2 suspensions

“…Succinylation of the piperazinyl ring, desorbed from the substrate, has been reported previously (Terzic et al, 2011), and is recognized as an important biotransformation product of FQ in the overall study of pharmaceuticals in aquatic environments (Michael et al, 2014).…”

“…These include antibiotics (Kümmerer, 2009a,b), as well as their metabolites (Michael et al, 2014), which are a special concern because they can cause antibiotic resistance in certain bacteria (Normark and Normark, 2002;Giger et al, 2003;Chander et al, 2005;Kim et al, 2007;Yu et al, 2009;Davies and Davies, 2010). This phenomenon is currently considered a major public health threat (CDC, 2013).…”

Assessing the potential of pharmaceuticals and their transformation products to cause mutagenic effects: Implications for gene expression profiling

“…Pharmaceuticals may undergo many transformation steps but rarely reach complete mineralization. For this reason, soils and waters receive not only the parent compounds of pharmaceuticals, but also their metabolites and transformation products [4,5]. The existence of the latter in wastewater and surface water has been already reported at the ng/L level [6,7].…”

“…They can be biotransformed by the liver and/or the intestinal microbial population [3]. For this reason, soils and waters receive not only the parent compounds of pharmaceuticals, but also their metabolites and transformation products [4,5]. Pharmaceuticals may undergo many transformation steps but rarely reach complete mineralization.…”

Water Flow Variability Affects Adsorption and Oxidation of Ciprofloxacin onto Hematite

“…The main problem related with the presence of antibiotics and their intermediate products in environmental systems is the possibility of inducing bacterial resistance genes. [15][16][17][18] Failure to take into consideration redox mechanisms coupled to water flow in natural porous media may introduce a bias in the characterization of affected environments leading to misevaluation of ecotoxicity. Therefore, predicting mobility of parents and daughter compounds in groundwater and subsurface environments is crucial for assessing potential genotoxic effects and human health risks.SUPPORTING INFORMATIONTEM image of hematite; experimental and calculated BTCs of non-reactive tracer (bromide); chemical speciation of CIP versus pH and identified oxidation byproducts; experimental and calculated BTCs of CIP where the flow rate was kept constant before and after flow interruption; experimental conditions for dynamic column breakthrough experiments; rate coefficients calculated from multiple flow-interruption events using eq.…”