Radioassay-Based Approach to Investigate Fate and Transformation of Conjugated and Free Estrogens in an Agricultural Soil.

Estrogens, a potent group of endocrine disruptors toward aquatic species, are primarily excreted as conjugates from humans and animals. Radioassay-based approaches with detailed speciation have been frequently conducted for environmental-fate studies for pesticides; however, such techniques have not been exploited for reproductive hormones, and especially for hormone conjugates. This article describes a simple, robust, and high-mass-recovery approach to investigate the fate and transformation of a prototype estrogen conjugate, that is, 17β-estradiol-3-glucuronide (E2-3G), and its metabolites (free estrogens) in a laboratory soil and water matrix without the need for enzymatic cleavage and/or fluorescent derivatization. E2-3G and its metabolites were baseline resolved in a single run using high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and quantified by liquid scintillation counting of the HPLC effluents. Transformation of E2-3G and the disposition of its metabolites--the free estrogens 17β-estradiol and estrone--into aqueous, sorbed, and gaseous phases, were adequately accounted for in a soil-water batch system. High mass balances ranging from 99.0% to 114.1% were obtained. Although the method gave lower sensitivity (parts per billion) than tandem mass spectrometer (parts per trillion), it offered sufficient chromatographic resolution and sensitivity to study the fate of labile estrogens in environmental matrices, using the concentration range of this study. An additional advantage of the approach was the relatively low cost of the instrumentation employed. The presented approach can be successfully applied to study the fate of conjugated hormones and their metabolites in the environment allowing simultaneous discernment of complex fate and transformation processes in soil, water, and gas.