Chlorobiphenyls: Model Compounds for Metabolism in Food Chain Organisms and Their Potential Use as Ecotoxicological Stress Indicators by Application of the Metabolic Slope Concept

• Published in: Environmental science & technology 1995-07, Vol.29 (7), p.1851-1859
• Main Authors: Kannan, Narayanan, Reusch, Thorsten B. H, Schulz-Bull, Detlef E, Petrick, Gert, Duinker, Jan C
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Animal, plant and microbial ecology; Applied ecology; Biological and medical sciences; Brackish; Ecotoxicology, biological effects of pollution; Freshwater; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Marine; Marine and brackish environment
• ISSN: 0013-936X; 1520-5851
• DOI: 10.1021/es00007a024

Chlorobiphenyls (CB) were determined in water and suspended particulates and in diatoms, marine worms (Nephtys species), mussels (Arctica islandica), shrimps (Crangon crangon), flounders (Platichthys flesus), herring (Clupea harengus) and a harbour porpoise (Phocoena phocoena), collected in the southern Baltic sea in 1990. The CB concentrations were determined by GC with electron capture detection. The results were analysed by principal component analysis. Four groups of CB were distinguished based on the presence or absence of vicinal hydrogen-atoms in o, m and/or m,p vicinal hydrogen-atoms, according to structure-activity relationships for their biotransformation by cytochrome P-450 1A and 2B isozymes. The CB contents were transformed into CB content /CB-153 ratios and plotted against this ratio in diatoms. A linear plot resulted for each metabolic group. The slopes indicated the relative metabolic efficiencies of cytochrome P-450 isozymes and could be used as environmental stress indicators. There are 77 references.