Novel Chemicals Identified in Pregnant Women in Northern California

Abstract

Introduction: In utero exposure to multiple environmental chemicals can adversely impact health throughout the lifespan. Developing analytical techniques to rapidly characterize exposure to the full spectrum environmental chemicals present in the human body is an integral component of an “exposome” approach. Therefore we apply a new method using liquid chromatography-quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry to perform a general suspects screen for the presence and co-occurrence of ~700 Environmental Organic Acids (EOAs): organic industrial chemicals with at least one dissociable proton, including phenolic compounds such as Bisphenol A; phthalate metabolites; phenolic metabolites of polybrominated diphenyl ethers and polychlorinated biphenyls; perfluorinated compounds; and phenolic and acidic pesticides and/or their predicted acidic and phenolic metabolites. Methods: We analyzed samples from 19 pregnant women in their 2nd trimester receiving care at San Francisco General Hospital, using the Agilent QTOF/MS 6550 instrument to identify ‘suspect EOAs.’ Results: We detected, on average, 100 (SD: 23) suspect EOAs in each woman (range: 56-126), including universal exposure to nine novel suspect EOAs – five phenols (e.g., 2,4-Dihydroxyphenone) and four phenolic pesticides and/or their phenolic metabolites (e.g., Dinoterb) – and two previously biomonitored suspect EOAs ((Mono-n-butyl phthalate (MnBP) and Perfluoroundecanoic acid (PFUA)). Some suspect EOAs that we detected in all participants who smoked last year were detected in only 60% of their counterparts. We detected in all Black participants ~17 suspect EOAs that had <60% detection frequency in White and Latina participants. Conclusion: Non-targeted analysis provides a viable method to screen for a broad spectrum of chemicals and help identify ubiquitously present and thus priority chemicals for targeted method development.