Department of Chemistry, University of Toronto, 80 St George Street, Toronto, Ontario M5S 3H6, Canada.
Department of Civil and Mineral Engineering, University of Toronto, 35 St George Street, Toronto, Ontario M5S 1A4, Canada.
Environ Sci Technol. 2022 Oct 18;56(20):14627-14639. doi: 10.1021/acs.est.2c03608. Epub 2022 Sep 29.
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 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 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.
塑料在全球范围内的使用增加引发了人们对其可能对人类健康造成负面影响的担忧。塑料产品中含有数百种潜在有毒的化学添加剂，但目前仍不清楚是什么确切的化学物质导致了毒性。在这项研究中，我们采用非靶向分析和生物测定来确定塑料中的毒性驱动因素。通过可疑筛选和非靶向分析，在五种常用塑料聚合物颗粒（即 PP、LDPE、HDPE、PET 和 PVC）中暂定鉴定出 56 种化学添加剂。邻苯二甲酸酯和有机磷酸酯在 PVC 颗粒中占主导地位。磷酸三苯酯和 2-乙基己基二苯基磷酸酯占 PVC 颗粒提取物抑制人羧酸酯酶 1（hCES1）活性的 53.6%。受 PVC 颗粒中化学添加剂高丰度的启发，进一步研究了六种不同的终端用户 PVC 基产品，包括三种广泛使用的 PVC 水管。其中，PVC 管的提取物对 PPARγ 活性和细胞活力抑制作用最强。有机锡被确定为 PVC 管提取物引起这些毒性的主要驱动因素。本研究明确阐明了与塑料相关的抑制 hCES1、激活 PPARγ 和抑制细胞活力的特定化学添加剂。
