Abstract
Phthalates, widely used in flexible plastics and consumer products, have become ubiquitous contaminants worldwide. This study evaluated the acute toxicity and estrogenic endocrine disrupting activity of butyl benzyl phthalate (BBP), di(n-butyl) phthalate (DBP), bis(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP), diisodecyl phthalate (DIDP), diisononyl phthalate (DINP), di-n-octyl phthalate (DNOP) and their mixtures. Using a 72 h zebrafish embryo toxicity test, the LC50 values of BBP, DBP and a mixture of the six phthalates were found to be 0.72, 0.63 and 0.50 ppm, respectively. The other four phthalates did not cause more than 50% exposed embryo mortality even at their highest soluble concentrations. The typical toxicity symptoms caused by phthalates were death, tail curvature, necrosis, cardio edema and no touch response. Using an estrogen-responsive ChgH-EGFP transgenic medaka (Oryzias melastigma) eleutheroembryos based 24 h test, BBP demonstrated estrogenic activity, DBP, DEHP, DINP and the mixture of the six phthalates exhibited enhanced-estrogenic activity and DIDP and DNOP showed no enhanced- or anti-estrogenic activity. These findings highlighted the developmental toxicity of BBP and DBP, and the estrogenic endocrine disrupting activity of BBP, DBP, DEHP and DINP on intact organisms, indicating that the widespread use of these phthalates may cause potential health risks to human beings.
Highlights
Phthalates are diesters of phthalic acids that are commonly used as plasticizer to increase the flexibility, pliability and elasticity of plastics, and widely used in cosmetics, personal care products, food packaging and medical products [1] With annual production of about 6.0 million tons, phthalates have been detected in water [2], air [3], sediments [4], soil [5], food [6,7], human blood plasma [1], breast milk [8,9], urine [10] and so on
The phthalates used in this study are Butyl benzyl phthalate (BBP, CAS# 85-68-7) from Aldrich, Di(n-butyl) phthalate (DBP, CAS# 84-74-2), Di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP, CAS# 117-81-7)
The lethal concentration 50 (LC50) of phthalates and their mixture were calculated basing on their mortality-dose response curve
Summary
Phthalates are diesters of phthalic acids that are commonly used as plasticizer to increase the flexibility, pliability and elasticity of plastics, and widely used in cosmetics, personal care products, food packaging and medical products [1] With annual production of about 6.0 million tons, phthalates have been detected in water [2], air [3], sediments [4], soil [5], food [6,7], human blood plasma [1], breast milk [8,9], urine [10] and so on. Some phthalates were reported to have the potential to cause decreased testicular weight and seminiferous tubular atrophy, increased DNA damage in men’s sperm, premature breast development in girls, shortened pregnancy and decreased anogenital distance in newborn male babies (summarized by Schecter et al [7]). These reproductive defects most likely result from the estrogen disrupting activity of certain phthalates
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