Unité Modèles pour l'Écotoxicologie et la Toxicologie, INERIS, Parc Technologique Alata, BP2, 60550 Verneuil-en-Halatte, France.
Sci Total Environ. 2011 Jan 1;409(3):489-94. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2010.10.028. Epub 2010 Nov 19.
Since REACh applies in all of EU, special emphasis has been put on the reduction of systematic ecotoxicity testing. In this context, it is important to extract a maximum of information from existing ecotoxicity databases in order to propose alternative methods aimed at replacing and reducing experimental testing. Consequently, we analyzed a database of new chemicals registered in France and Europe during the last twenty years reporting aquatic ecotoxicity data with respect to three trophic levels (i.e., Algae EC50 72 h, Daphnia EC50 48 h and Fish LC50 96 h). In order to ensure the relevance of the comparison between these three experimental tests, we performed a stringent data selection based on the pertinence and quality of available ecotoxicological information. At the end of this selection, less than 5% of the initial number of chemicals was retained for subsequent analysis. Such an analysis showed that fish was the least sensitive trophic level, whereas Daphnia had the highest sensitivity. Moreover, thanks to an analysis of the relative sensitivity of trophic levels, it was possible to establish that respective correction factors of 50 and 10 would be necessary if only one or two test values were available. From a physicochemical point of view, it was possible to characterize two significant correlations relating the sensitivity of the aforementioned trophic levels with the chemical structure of the retained substances. This analysis showed that algae displayed a higher sensitivity towards chemicals containing acid fragments whereas fish presented a higher sensitivity towards chemicals containing aromatic ether fragments. Overall, our work suggests that statistical analysis of historical data combined with data yielded by the REACh regulation should permit the derivation of robust safety factors, testing strategies and mathematical models. These alternative methods, in turn, could allow a replacement and reduction of ecotoxicological testing.
由于 REACh 在整个欧盟范围内适用，因此特别强调减少系统的生态毒性测试。在这种情况下，从现有的生态毒性数据库中提取尽可能多的信息非常重要，以便提出旨在替代和减少实验测试的替代方法。因此，我们分析了法国和欧洲在过去二十年中注册的新化学物质数据库，该数据库报告了有关三个营养级别的水生生态毒性数据（即藻类 EC50 72 小时、水蚤 EC50 48 小时和鱼类 LC50 96 小时）。为了确保这三种实验测试之间的比较具有相关性，我们根据现有生态毒理学信息的相关性和质量进行了严格的数据选择。在这种选择结束时，只有不到 5%的初始化学品数量被保留用于后续分析。这种分析表明，鱼类是最不敏感的营养级，而水蚤的敏感性最高。此外，通过对营养级相对敏感性的分析，可以确定如果只有一个或两个测试值可用，则需要分别使用 50 和 10 的校正因子。从物理化学的角度来看，有可能确定与保留物质的化学结构相关的两个重要相关性，这些相关性与上述营养级的敏感性有关。该分析表明，藻类对含有酸片段的化学物质表现出更高的敏感性，而鱼类对含有芳香醚片段的化学物质表现出更高的敏感性。总体而言，我们的工作表明，历史数据的统计分析与 REACh 法规产生的数据相结合，应该可以得出可靠的安全系数、测试策略和数学模型。这些替代方法反过来又可以替代和减少生态毒性测试。
