Abstract
Bisphenols are used in the production of polycarbonate plastics and epoxy resins. Bisphenol A (BPA) has been widely studied and is believed to act as an endocrine disruptor. Bisphenol F (BPF) and bisphenol S (BPS) have increasingly been employed as replacements for BPA, although previous studies suggested that they yield similar physiological responses to several organisms. Daphnia magna is a common model organism for ecotoxicology and was exposed to sub-lethal concentrations of BPA, BPF, and BPS to investigate disruption to metabolic profiles. Targeted metabolite analysis by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) was used to measure polar metabolites extracted from D. magna, which are linked to a range of biochemical pathways. Multivariate analyses and individual metabolite changes showed similar non-monotonic concentration responses for all three bisphenols (BPA, BPF, and BPS). Pathway analyses indicated the perturbation of similar and distinct pathways, mostly associated with protein synthesis, amino acid metabolism, and energy metabolism. Overall, we observed responses that can be linked to a chemical class (bisphenols) as well as distinct responses that can be related to each individual bisphenol type (A, F, and S). These findings further demonstrate the need for using metabolomic analyses in exposure assessment, especially for chemicals within the same class which may disrupt the biochemistry uniquely at the molecular-level.
Highlights
Bisphenol A (4,4 -(Propane-2,2-diyl)diphenol; bisphenol A (BPA)) is an organic synthetic compound used in the manufacturing of polycarbonate plastics and epoxy resins [1,2]
BPA exposure groups were separated from the control along principal component 2 but did not follow any concentration-dependent pattern, which is consistent with previous studies that reported non-monotonic responses with BPA exposure in different aquatic organisms [39,53,54]
Neither Principal component analysis (PCA) nor partial least square-discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) identified any concentration dependence for any of the bisphenols studied. Both multivariate analysis methods indicated that BPA and bisphenol S (BPS) exposure resulted in more distinguished separation from the control while bisphenol F (BPF) was observed to show fewer overall differences with exposure
Summary
Bisphenol A (4,4 -(Propane-2,2-diyl)diphenol; BPA) is an organic synthetic compound used in the manufacturing of polycarbonate plastics and epoxy resins [1,2]. Several chemicals structurally analogous to BPA have been developed as replacements and many of them are currently in use [9]. These compounds have two hydroxyphenyl groups in their structure and are commonly referred to as BPA analogues [10]. BPF has been used in the production of lacquers, vanishers, adhesives plastics, water pipes, dental sealants, and food package coatings while BPS has been applied in the manufacturing process of polyvinyl chloride (PVC), thermal printing papers, electronic components, food and beverages containers [13,14]. Compared to BPA, information on the occurrence, distribution and impact on receiving organisms of BPF and BPS is still limited [9,10], which indicates the need for further examination of these chemicals that are increasingly incorporated in the production of plastic globally
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