Joint toxicity of mixtures of groups of organic aquatic pollutants to the guppy (Poecilia reticulata)

doi:10.1016/0147-6513(85)90049-1

Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety

Volume 9, Issue 3, June 1985, Pages 321-326

https://doi.org/10.1016/0147-6513(85)90049-1 Get rights and content

Abstract

In this study acute lethal concentrations (LC₅₀) to the guppy (Poecilia reticulata) were determined for mixtures of 4 groups of aquatic pollutants. The groups were composed of 11 nonreactive, nonionized organic chemicals, 11 chloroanilines, 11 chlorophenols, and 9 reactive organic halides. Earlier studies indicated that the joint toxicity within each of these groups was concentration additive, probably because of a similar mode of action. The joint toxicity of combinations of one representative from each group showed a high variance, but generally tended to be partially additive to concentration additive. This high variance is probably caused by the low number of compounds in these mixtures. Experiments with mixtures of whole groups gave more accurate results. The toxicity of a mixture of the first three groups, containing 33 well-known aquatic pollutants, was almost completely concentration additive. Concentrations of 0.04 of the individual LC₅₀ values contributed to the toxicity of this mixture.

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Joint toxicity of mixtures of 8 and 24 chemicals to the guppy (Poecilia reticulata)
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J. Hermens et al.
Quantitative structure-activity relationships and mixture toxicity studies of chloro- and alkylanilines at an acute lethal toxicity level to the guppy (Poecilia reticulata)
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Structure-activity relationships and additivity in fish toxicity studies of environmental pollutants
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There are more references available in the full text version of this article.

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Citation Excerpt :
Many commercial products also contain 2 QACs together such as BAC and DDAC. Mixtures can act synergistically or antagonistically to produce an effect that is different from the sum of the individual components and must be evaluated together when determining chemical exposure risk [1–3]. QAC disinfectants are historically viewed as having low toxicity; although exposure can cause asthma, contact dermatitis, ocular inflammation, and hypersensitivity [4–6].
Humans are frequently exposed to Quaternary Ammonium Compounds (QACs). QACs are ubiquitously used in medical settings, restaurants, and homes as cleaners and disinfectants. Despite their prevalence, nothing is known about the health effects associated with chronic low-level exposure. Chronic QAC toxicity, only recently identified in mice, resulted in developmental, reproductive, and immune dysfunction. Cell based studies indicate increased inflammation, decreased mitochondrial function, and disruption of cholesterol synthesis. If these findings translate to human toxicity, multiple physiological processes could be affected. This study tested whether QAC concentrations could be detected in the blood of 43 human volunteers, and whether QAC concentrations influenced markers of inflammation, mitochondrial function, and cholesterol synthesis. QAC concentrations were detected in 80 % of study participants. Blood QACs were associated with increase in inflammatory cytokines, decreased mitochondrial function, and disruption of cholesterol homeostasis in a dose dependent manner. This is the first study to measure QACs in human blood, and also the first to demonstrate statistically significant relationships between blood QAC and meaningful health related biomarkers. Additionally, the results are timely in light of the increased QAC disinfectant exposure occurring due to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.
This study found that 80 % of study participants contained QACs in their blood; and that markers of inflammation, mitochondrial function, and sterol homeostasis varied with blood QAC concentration.
Water pollution affects fish community structure and alters evolutionary trajectories of invasive guppies (Poecilia reticulata)
2020, Science of the Total Environment
Anthropogenic habitat alterations have the potential to affect both, ecological dynamics of communities and populations, as well as evolutionary processes within populations. Invasive species may benefit from anthropogenic disturbance, such as water pollution, to which they sometimes seem more resistant than native ones. They also allow investigating evolutionary divergence among populations occurring along pollution gradients. We assessed fish communities at 55 sampling sites in the degraded and heavily overstocked Mutara Rangelands of north-eastern Rwanda (upper Nile drainage), which receive pollution from domestic wastewater and cattle dung. Diverse fish communities became apparent that included invasive guppies (Poecilia reticulata, Poeciliidae), and canonical correspondence analyses found significant differentiation of community structures along several environmental parameters (condensed into principal components), including pollution-effects. As predicted, generalized linear models found guppies to have a higher likelihood of occurrence at polluted sites. Local abundances of guppies, however, decreased at polluted sites. Since guppies are color-polymorphic, and color patterns have a heritable basis, they allow inferences regarding both pollution-induced suppression of male ornamentation (e.g., through xenestrogens) and evolutionary population divergence. We thus quantified different ornament types (numbers and percent body surface cover). ANCOVAs uncovered several weak (based on effect strengths), but statistically significant pollution-effects and interactions with other environmental parameters. The direction of several interaction effects was similar for blue/black and red/orange ornaments, while white/iridescent ornaments responded dissimilarly. As responses differed between ornament types, they likely reflect evolutionary divergence due to site-specific alterations of selective regimes rather than developmental inhibition of male secondary sexual characters. We propose that pollution affects local fitness landscapes resulting, e.g., from predation and mate competition (as a function of local abundances), altogether driving evolutionary divergence of sexually selected traits. This study highlights how human activities not only impact ecological dynamics, but—mediated by altered Eco-Evo dynamics—might change the evolutionary trajectories of populations.
Association between mixture of persistent organic pollutants and thyroid pathologies in a Belgian population
2020, Environmental Research
Citation Excerpt :
However, a growing number of investigations showed that the effects of mixture components can be additive, and that each component contributes to the combination effect in relation to its dose and its potency. An important consequence of this observation is the “something from nothing” phenomenon: the combination of a sufficient number of chemicals at individual concentrations associated with zero effect will jointly produce an observable effect (Kortenkamp, 2014; Faust et al., 2001; Hermens et al., 1985; Silva et al., 2002; Hass et al., 2007; Villa et al., 2012). Many chemicals which largely have contaminated the environment and the human populations are suspected to be thyroid disruptors (Boas et al., 2012), among them, the persistent organic pollutants (POPs) such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), brominated flame retardants (BFRs), organochlorine pesticides, perfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) or phenolic organohalogens (POHs).
Previous years, the incidence of autoimmune thyroid diseases has increased worldwide. The presence of many pollutants in the environment suspected to be thyroid disruptors may have contributed to the observed increase. Unfortunately, the results from epidemiological studies assessing the association between pollution and thyroid disorders remain inconsistent, maybe due to a nearly complete neglect of the mixture effect. The blood levels of 12 brominated flame retardants, 3 polychlorinated biphenyls, 16 organochlorine pesticides, 7 perfluoroalkyl substances and 16 phenolic organohalogens were measured in 35 hypothyroid and 44 hyperthyroid volunteers and in 160 individuals from the general population designed as controls. Weighted quantile sum (WQS) regressions were performed to compute indexes representing the mixture of POPs, and we assessed the relations with thyroid disorders. Nineteen pollutants were detected in more than 40% of the individuals and were thus included in the WQS indexes. The WQS index was statistically significantly associated with an increased odds of hypothyroidism (odds ratio (OR) = 98.1; 95% CI: 5.51–1747) with the highest weights attributed to PCB 138 (w = 0.210), 3-OH-CB 180 (w = 0.197), 4-OH-CB 146 (w = 0.188), 4’,4-DDE (w = 0.156) while there were no evidence of a relation with increased odds of hyperthyroidism. Given the relative low number of individuals included in the present investigation, standard WQS methodology could not be used, this study should thus be considered as a preliminary, hypothesis-generating study. Nevertheless, these results highlighted the importance of considering the potential effect of chemical mixture when studying endocrine disruptors.
Using native and invasive livebearing fishes (Poeciliidae, Teleostei) for the integrated biological assessment of pollution in urban streams
2020, Science of the Total Environment
Invasive species are increasingly replacing native species, especially in anthropogenically transformed or polluted habitats. This opens the possibility to use invasive species as indicator taxa for the biological assessment of pollution. Integrated biological assessment, however, additionally relies on the application of multiple approaches to quantify physiological or cytogenetic responses to pollution within the same focal species. This is challenging when species are restricted to either polluted or unpolluted sites. Here, we make use of a small group of neotropical livebearing fishes (family Poeciliidae) for the integrated biological assessment of water quality. Comparing urban and suburban stream sections that receive varying degrees of pollution from industrial and domestic waste waters in and around the Brazilian city of Uberlândia, we demonstrate that two members of this family may indeed serve as indicators of water pollution levels. The native species Phalloceros caudimaculatus appears to be replaced by invasive guppies (Poecilia reticulata) at heavily polluted sites. Nevertheless, we demonstrate that both species could be used for the assessment of bioaccumulation of heavy metals (Pb, Cu, and Cr). Ambient (sediment) concentrations predicted concentrations in somatic tissue across species (R²-values between 0.74 and 0.96). Moreover, we used cytogenetic methods to provide an estimate of genotoxic effects of water pollution and found pollution levels (multiple variables, condensed into principal components) to predict the occurrence of nuclear abnormalities (e.g., frequencies of micro-nucleated cells) across species (R² between 0.69 and 0.83). The occurrence of poeciliid fishes in urban and polluted environments renders this family a prime group of focal organisms for biological water quality monitoring and assessment. Both species could be used interchangeably to assess genotoxic effects of water pollution, which may facilitate future comparative analyses over extensive geographic scales, as members of the family Poeciliidae have become invasive in tropical and subtropical regions worldwide.
Introduction
2015, Aquatic Ecotoxicology: Advancing Tools for Dealing with Emerging Risks
The aquatic environment appears as the final destination for most of anthropogenic contaminants released from industry, agriculture, urbanization, transport, tourism, and everyday life. On the other hand, inland, coastal, and marine waters provide many services important for human well-being. The conservation of ecosystems and human health is based on a sound assessment of the risks associated with the presence of contaminants in the aquatic environment. The aim of this book is to use cross-analyses of procedures, biological models, and contaminants to design ecotoxicological tools suitable for better environmental assessments, particularly in the case of emerging contaminants and emerging concern with legacy pollutants.
Quantitative structure-activity relationships for chronic toxicity of alkyl-chrysenes and alkyl-benz[a]anthracenes to Japanese medaka embryos (Oryzias latipes)
2015, Aquatic Toxicology
Citation Excerpt :
However, PAHs are usually present in the environment in mixtures, and a risk assessment focused on single compounds could underestimate toxicity. The overall toxicity of chemicals in mixtures has been modeled as concentration additive, with the toxicity of each compound expressed as toxic units (1.0 TU = the ratio of the water-column concentration and the EC50 or LC50 concentration) (Hermens et al., 1985; Mayer and Reichenberg, 2006; McCarty and MacKay, 1993). Because the solubility of a mixture of chemicals is approximately additive (i.e., the sum of the individual solubilities) (Banerjee, 1984), complex mixtures can produce higher toxicity (Mayer and Holmstrup, 2008).
Alkylated polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (alkyl-PAHs) are a class of compounds found at significant concentrations in crude oils, and likely the main constituents responsible for the chronic toxicity of oil to fish. Alkyl substituents at different locations on the aromatic rings change the size and shape of PAH molecules, which results in different interactions with tissue receptors and different severities of toxicity. The present study is the first to report the toxicity of several alkylated derivatives of chrysene and benz[a]anthracene to the embryos of Japanese medaka (Oryzias latipes) using the partition controlled delivery (PCD) method of exposure. The PCD method maintained the desired exposure concentrations by equilibrium partitioning of hydrophobic test compounds from polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) films. Test concentrations declined by only 13% over a period of 17 days. Based on the prevalence of signs of blue sac disease (BSD), as expressed by median effective concentrations (EC50s), benz[a]anthracene (B[a]A) was more toxic than chrysene. Alkylation generally increased toxicity, except at position 2 of B[a]A. Alkyl-PAHs substituted in the middle region had a lower EC50 than those substituted at the distal region. Except for B[a]A and 7-methylbenz[a]anthracene (7-MB), estimated EC50 values were higher than their solubility limits, which resulted in limited toxicity within the range of test concentrations. The regression between log EC50s and log K_ow values provided a rough estimation of structure–activity relationships for alkyl-PAHs, but K_ow alone did not provide a complete explanation of the chronic toxicity of alkyl PAHs.

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¹: Present address: Institute for Pesticide Research, Marijkeweg 22, 6709 PG Wageningen, The Netherlands.

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Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety

Abstract

References (10)

Joint toxicity of mixtures of 8 and 24 chemicals to the guppy (Poecilia reticulata)

Ecotoxicol. Environ. Safety

Quantitative structure-activity relationships and mixture toxicity studies of chloro- and alkylanilines at an acute lethal toxicity level to the guppy (Poecilia reticulata)

Ecotoxicol. Environ. Safety

Structure-activity relationships and additivity in fish toxicity studies of environmental pollutants

Ecotoxicol. Environ. Safety

Fish toxicity tests with mixtures of more than two chemicals: A proposal for a quantitative approach and experimental results

Toxicology

Quantitative structure-activity relationships in fish toxicity studies. Part 1: Relationship for 50 industrial pollutants

Toxicology

Cited by (57)

Altered toxicological endpoints in humans from common quaternary ammonium compound disinfectant exposure

Water pollution affects fish community structure and alters evolutionary trajectories of invasive guppies (Poecilia reticulata)

Association between mixture of persistent organic pollutants and thyroid pathologies in a Belgian population

Using native and invasive livebearing fishes (Poeciliidae, Teleostei) for the integrated biological assessment of pollution in urban streams

Introduction

Quantitative structure-activity relationships for chronic toxicity of alkyl-chrysenes and alkyl-benz[a]anthracenes to Japanese medaka embryos (Oryzias latipes)