In vitro agonistic and antagonistic endocrine disrupting effects of organic extracts from waste water of different treatment processes

Abstract

Effluents from wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) have been reported to have a broad spectrum of endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs). The majority of studies have focused on the occurrence of estrogenic activity, while ignoring nuclear hormone receptors (NRs) pathways. In the present study, a battery of in vitro yeast bioassays and a cell bioassay, including antagonistic and agonistic effects on estrogen receptor (ER), androgen receptor (AR), progesterone receptor (PR), estrogen-related receptor (ERR) and aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AHR), were conducted to evaluate the removal efficiencies of EDCs by different treatment processes of a WWTP located in Beijing. Estrogenic, anti-estrogenic, anti- androgenic, anti-progesteronic, anti-ERR and the activation of AHR activities were detected in samples from all treatment processes and the receiving water. The concentration of estrogenic contaminants with estradiol (E₂) equivalent concentrations ranged from 0.82 × 10^-9 to 3.54 × 10^-9 g E₂-EQ·L^-1. The concentration of anti-estrogenic contaminants with 4-hydroxytamoxifen (4-OHT) equivalent concentrations ranged from 1.24 × 10^-6 to 2.36 × 10^-6 g 4-OHT-EQ·L^-1. The concentration of anti-androgenic contaminants ranged from 2.21 × 10^-8 to 3.52 × 10^-6 g flutamide-EQ·L^-1. The concentration of anti-progesteronic contaminants ranged from 3.15 × 10^-5 to 2.71 × 10^-4 g RU486-EQ·L^-1. The concentration of anti-ERR contaminants ranged from 7.09 × 10^-5 to 6.50 × 10^-4 g 4-OHT-EQ·L^-1. The concentration of AHR activators ranged from 1.7 × 10^-10 to 3.4 × 10^-10 g TCDD-EQ·L^-1. These processes including secondary clarifier, coagulation, as well as coal and sand filtration could eliminated 67.2% of estrogenic contaminants, 47.0% of anti-estrogenic contaminants, 98.3% of anti-androgenic contaminants, 88.4% of anti-progesteronic contaminants, 65.4% of anti-ERR contaminants and 46.9% of AHR activators. WWTP effluents contain multiple receptor disruptors may have very complex adverse effects on exposed organisms.

Keywords

waste water / in vitro / recombinant yeast assay / ethoxyresorufin-O-deethylase (EROD) / receptor / endocrine

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Environmental Protection National Commonweal Research Project (No. 200909040), International Scientific and Technological Cooperation Projects by the Ministry of Science and Technology of China (No. 2009DFA91920) and the National High Technology Research and Development Program( No. 2009AA06Z402).

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