Screening Disinfection Byproducts and Phenolic Compounds for Estrogenic Activity

Screening Disinfection Byproducts and Phenolic Compounds for Estrogenic Activity Public Deposited

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Creator

Ebohon, Paul
- Affiliation: Gillings School of Global Public Health, Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering

Abstract

Very few of the more than 600 individual disinfection byproducts (DBPs) identified in drinking water are currently regulated based on their carcinogenic potential. Endocrine disruption is another potential mechanism through which DBPs could affect human health but limited research has evaluated this threat. This thesis evaluates the potential endocrine activity of several DBPs and phenolic compounds using an in vitro yeast estrogen screen. The rank order of tested compounds demonstrates that while estrogenic activity is observed only at concentrations that are two to three orders of magnitude higher than typical environmental concentrations, the unregulated DBPs such as mucochloric acid and dibromoacetonitrile show higher potency than the regulated dibromo- and trichloroacetic acids. It is also clear that the presence of a halogen in the DBP is responsible for the observed estrogenic activity since the non halogenated structures (acetic acid and acetonitrile) showed no activity in the same concentration range.

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