Abstract
Antiretrovirals (ARVs) have been detected in aquatic ecosystems throughout the world; however, studies focused on assessing their ecotoxicological effects on marine aquatic organisms are still rare. In the present study, the predicted environmental concentration (PEC) of 13 ARVs was estimated for surface seawater from Santos Bay, Brazil, according to the European Medicines Agency (EMEA) guidelines. The results indicated that all ARVs need to be assessed for their ecological effects, considering that they all exceeded the EMEA guideline limits (PEC > 0.01 µg L−1). In this sense, three ARVs (namely atazanavir, nevirapine and efavirenz) were selected for the acute and chronic tests with sea urchin (Echinometra lucunter). Furthermore, the Environmental Risk Assessment (ERA) for these three ARVs was also performed by calculating the risk quotient. The acute and chronic toxicity results showed inhibitory concentrations (IC) for the fertilization (IC50; 1 h; range: 11.46–84.61 mg L−1) and for the embryo–larval development (IC50; 42 h; range: 0.52–0.97 mg L−1) of the sea urchin, respectively. Moreover, the ERA showed that these three ARVs are potentially hazardous for aquatic life in Santos Bay, raising concerns about the continuous introduction of ARVs in aquatic ecosystems. The data presented may contribute to the provision of subsidies for the development of monitoring public policies that aim to reduce the introduction of ARVs into the aquatic environment.
Highlights
40% of the world’s population, estimated at 7.2 billion people, live in about 2100 coastal cities [1,2,3]
Predictive models have been used as an approach for investigating the presence of pharmaceuticals in the environment, especially in hospitals and wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) effluents [37,38]
predicted environmental concentration (PEC) is an estimation of the concentration of a substance in the environment, considering the initial amount released into the environment in terms of its fate, transformation and removal, either by artificial or natural means [13,26]
Summary
40% of the world’s population, estimated at 7.2 billion people, live in about 2100 coastal cities [1,2,3]. The high population concentration in the world’s coastal cities raises some concerns because there are many people living in this small area of the world’s land surface, estimated at between 4 and 8%, causing intensive anthropic use of the narrow coastal areas [2,4] This high concentration of people exposes coastal ecosystems to different anthropogenic pressures, such as the disposal of municipal wastewater in the marine environment [5,6,7]. Therapies with ARVs aim to reduce viral load, improving the host immune system once HIV mainly attacks the CD4+T cells, a crucial component in the body’s immune system [12,13,14] Based on their molecular mechanism of action, three classes of ARVs are widely used: (i) nucleoside/nucleotide reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NRTIs), namely abacavir, didanosine, lamivudine, tenofovir, and zidovudine; (ii) non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NNRTIs), namely efavirenz, etravirine, and nevirapine; and (iii) protease inhibitors (PI), namely atazanavir, darunavir, lopinavir, ritonavir, and tipranavir. Advances in ARVs treatment, essentially after the development of Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy (HAART), a treatment regimen comprising a combination of three or more ARVs, made it possible to transform a syndrome, that was previously perceived to be a diagnostic to an announced death, into a disease with chronicity prospects [12,13,14]
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