Publications
Wastewater-based epidemiology to assess human exposure to personal care and household products – A review of biomarkers, analytical methods, and applications
Ivan Senta, Sara Rodríguez-Mozaz, Lluís Corominas, Mira Petrovic
Trends in Environmental Analytical Chemistry 28 (2020) e00103
Abstract
Humans are nowadays exposed to numerous chemicals in our day-to-day life, including parabens, UV filters, phosphorous flame retardants/plasticizers, bisphenols, phthalates and alternative plasticizers, which can have different adverse effects to human health. Estimating human’s exposure to these potentially harmful substances is, therefore, of paramount importance. Human biomonitoring (HBM) is the existing approach to assess exposure to environmental contaminants, which relies on the analysis of specific human biomarkers (parent compounds and/or their metabolic products) in biological matrices from individuals. The main drawback is its implementation, which involves complex cohort studies. A novel approach, wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE), involves estimating exposure from the analysis of biomarkers in sewage (a pooled urine and feces sample of an entire population). One of the key challenges of WBE is the selection of biomarkers which are specific to human metabolism, excreted in sufficient amounts, and stable in sewage. So far, literature data on potential biomarkers for estimating exposure to these chemicals are scattered over numerous pharmacokinetic and HBM studies. Hence, this review provides a list of potential biomarkers of exposure to more than 30 widely used chemicals and report on their urinary excretion rates. Furthermore, the potential and challenges of WBE in this particular field is discussed through the review of pioneer WBE studies, which for the first time explored applicability of this novel approach to assess human exposure to environmental contaminants. In the future, WBE could be potentially applied as an “early warning system”, which could promptly identify communities with the highest exposure to environmental contaminants.
Applicability of an on-line solid-phase extraction liquid
chromatography – tandem mass spectrometry for the wastewater-based
assessment of human exposure to chemicals from personal care and
household products
Ivan Senta, Sara Rodríguez-Mozaz, Lluís Corominas, Adrian Covaci, Mira Petrovic
Science of the Total Environment 845 (2022) 157309
Abstract
Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) can be a useful complementary approach to assess human exposure to potentially
harmful chemicals, including those from personal care and household products. In this work, a fully automated
multiresidue method, based on on-line solid-phase extraction liquid chromatography – tandem mass spectrometry,
was developed for the determination of 27 biomarkers of human exposure to selected chemicals from personal care
and household products, including parabens, UV filters, phthalates and alternative plasticizers, phosphorous flame
retardants/plasticizers (PFRs), and bisphenols. These biomarkers include both the parent compounds and their
human metabolites. In addition, two oxidative stress biomarkers, 8-epi-prostaglandin F2α and 4-hydroxy nonenal
mercapturic acid, were also considered in the study. The method was carefully optimized to tackle the challenges of
analyzing compounds with different physico-chemical properties in a highly complex raw wastewater matrix, while
model experiments were performed to investigate filtration losses and analyte stability. The applicability of the developed
method was tested by analyzing raw wastewater from four European cities: Antwerp, Brussels (Belgium), Girona
(Spain), and Zagreb (Croatia). Twenty-one biomarkers (10 parent compounds and 11 metabolites) were detected in all
analyzed wastewater samples. The parent compounds with the highest mass loads were PFRs, parabens, and bisphenol
S, while phthalate monoesters were the most prominent metabolites. The mass loads of most compounds were quite
similar across cities, but geographic differences were observed for some biomarkers, such as metabolites of phthalates
and alternative plasticizers. Exposure was then assessed for seven substances for which quantitative urinary excretion data are known.
Our results indicate that safe reference values were exceeded for several contaminants, including butylated
phthalates, bisphenol A, and tris(2-butoxyethyl) phosphate, particularly for toddlers. With this relatively simple
method, which requires less sample manipulation, it is possible to promptly identify and monitor exposure to
harmful chemicals at the population level using the WBE approach.