Defining the Chemical Additives Driving In Vitro Toxicities of Plastics

Increases in the global use of plastics have caused concerns regarding potential adverse effects on human health. Plastic products contain hundreds of potentially toxic chemical additives, yet the exact chemicals which drive toxicity currently remain unknown. In this study, we employed nontargeted a...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Environmental science & technology 2022-10, Vol.56 (20), p.14627-14639
Main Authors: Chen, Wanzhen, Gong, Yufeng, McKie, Michael, Almuhtaram, Husein, Sun, Jianxian, Barrett, Holly, Yang, Diwen, Wu, Menghong, Andrews, Robert C., Peng, Hui
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Additives
Bioassays
Carboxylesterase
Cell viability
Ecotoxicology and Public Health
Organophosphates
Pellets
Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors
Pipes
Plastics
Polymers
Polyvinyl chloride
Toxicity
Water pipelines
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Increases in the global use of plastics have caused concerns regarding potential adverse effects on human health. Plastic products contain hundreds of potentially toxic chemical additives, yet the exact chemicals which drive toxicity currently remain unknown. In this study, we employed nontargeted analysis and in vitro bioassays to identify the toxicity drivers in plastics. A total of 56 chemical additives were tentatively identified in five commonly used plastic polymer pellets (i.e., PP, LDPE, HDPE, PET, and PVC) by employing suspect screening and nontargeted analysis. Phthalates and organophosphates were found to be dominant in PVC pellets. Triphenyl phosphate and 2-ethylhexyl diphenyl phosphate accounted for a high amount (53.6%) of the inhibition effect of PVC pellet extract on human carboxylesterase 1 (hCES1) activity. Inspired by the high abundances of chemical additives in PVC pellets, six different end-user PVC-based products including three widely used PVC water pipes were further examined. Among them, extracts of PVC pipe exerted the strongest PPARγ activity and cell viability suppression. Organotins were identified as the primary drivers to these in vitro toxicities induced by the PVC pipe extracts. This study clearly delineates specific chemical additives responsible for hCES1 inhibition, PPARγ activity, and cell viability suppression associated with plastic.
ISSN:0013-936X
1520-5851
DOI:10.1021/acs.est.2c03608