Queensland Alliance for Environmental Health Sciences, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD 4108, Australia.
Advanced Water Management Center, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD 4072, Australia.
Sci Total Environ. 2017 Dec 31;609:1172-1181. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2017.07.231. Epub 2017 Aug 4.
Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) is considered to be a useful tool for monitoring chemical consumption in the population. However, the lack of information on potential transformation of biomarkers in the sewer system can compromise the accuracy of the consumption estimation. The present study contributes to addressing this issue by investigating the in-sewer stability of biomarkers from a number of commonly used drugs using laboratory sewer reactors that can mimic different sewer conditions. A stable and an unstable chemical (carbamazepine and caffeine) were also used as benchmarking chemicals to reflect the chemical degradation potential in different sewer conditions. The results suggested that ketamine and norketamine were unstable in gravity and rising main sewers, ketamine was unstable in bulk liquid while norketamine was stable under the same condition. Similarly, mephedrone and methylone were unstable in sewer conditions with considerable deviation. Significant loss of buprenorphine, methadone, oxycodone and codeine was observed in the rising main sewer. Morphine and codeine glucuronide were found to be deconjugated from their glucuronides quickly in the presence of biofilms. This study indicates that it is important to evaluate the stability of biomarkers in the sewer system before using them in WBE for estimating consumption/exposure to reduce uncertainties.
基于污水的流行病学（WBE）被认为是监测人群中化学物质消耗的有用工具。然而，由于缺乏有关生物标志物在污水系统中潜在转化的信息，可能会影响消耗估计的准确性。本研究通过使用可模拟不同污水条件的实验室污水反应器，对一些常用药物的生物标志物在污水中的稳定性进行了研究，从而解决了这一问题。还使用了一种稳定和一种不稳定的化学物质（卡马西平和咖啡因）作为基准化学物质，以反映不同污水条件下的化学降解潜力。结果表明，在重力和主污水管道中，氯胺酮和去甲氯胺酮不稳定；在污水中，氯胺酮不稳定，而去甲氯胺酮稳定。同样，在污水条件下，甲卡西酮和 4-甲基甲卡西酮不稳定。在主污水管道中，丁丙诺啡、美沙酮、羟考酮和可待因的损失明显。在生物膜存在的情况下，发现吗啡和可待因葡萄糖醛酸迅速从葡萄糖醛酸轭合物中脱轭。本研究表明，在使用污水流行病学（WBE）来估计消耗/暴露之前，评估生物标志物在污水系统中的稳定性非常重要，以降低不确定性。
