Suspect Screening of Chemicals in Hospital Wastewaters Using Effect-Directed Analysis Approach as Prioritization Strategy

• Published in: Molecules (Basel, Switzerland) Switzerland), 2023-01, Vol.28 (3), p.1212
• Main Authors: Lopez-Herguedas, Naroa, Mijangos, Leire, Alvarez-Mora, Iker, González-Gaya, Belén, Uribe-Echeverria, Teresa, Etxebarria, Nestor, Zuloaga, Olatz, Olivares, Maitane, Prieto, Ailette
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Analysis; Bioassays; Biocompatibility; Biological activity; Chemical compounds; Chemicals; Composition; Contaminants; Contamination; effect-directed analysis; Effluents; Environmental aspects; Environmental Monitoring - methods; Fractionation; Gas chromatography; hospital effluent; Hospital wastes; Hospitals; In vivo methods and tests; Industrial products; LC-q-Orbitrap; Liquid chromatography; Mass spectrometry; Mass Spectrometry - methods; Mass spectroscopy; Medical wastes; Organisms; Pesticides; Pollution monitoring; sea urchin bioassay; Sea urchin embryo; Simplification; suspect screening; Testing; Toxicity; Toxicology; Wastewater; Wastewater analysis; Water - analysis; Water monitoring; Water Pollutants, Chemical - analysis; Water Pollutants, Chemical - toxicity; Water sampling
• ISSN: 1420-3049; 1420-3049
• DOI: 10.3390/molecules28031212

The increasing number of contaminants in the environment has pushed water monitoring programs to find out the most hazardous known and unknown chemicals in the environment. Sample treatment-simplification methods and non-target screening approaches can help researchers to not overlook potential chemicals present in complex aqueous samples. In this work, an effect-directed analysis (EDA) protocol using the sea urchin embryo test (SET) as a toxicological in vivo bioassay was used as simplified strategy to identify potential unknown chemicals present in a very complex aqueous matrix such as hospital effluent. The SET bioassay was used for the first time here to evaluate potential toxic fractions in hospital effluent, which were obtained after a two-step fractionation using C and aminopropyl chromatographic semi-preparative columns. The unknown compounds present in the toxic fractions were identified by means of liquid chromatography coupled to a Q Exactive Orbitrap high-resolution mass spectrometer (LC-HRMS) and using a suspect analysis approach. The results were complemented by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry analysis (GC-MS) in order to identify the widest range of chemical compounds present in the sample and the toxic fractions. Using EDA as sample treatment simplification method, the number of unknown chemicals (>446 features) detected in the raw sample was narrowed down to 94 potential toxic candidates identified in the significantly toxic fractions. Among them, the presence of 25 compounds was confirmed with available chemical standards including 14 pharmaceuticals, a personal care product, six pesticides and four industrial products. The observations found in this work emphasize the difficulties in identifying potential toxicity drivers in complex water samples, as in the case of hospital wastewater.