Li Chao, Xu Shen, Guan Dong-Xing, Chen Xian-Xian, He Huan
School of Environment, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing 210023, China; School of Geography, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing 210023, China.
Institute of Agricultural Resources and Environment, Jiangsu Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Nanjing 210014, China.
Ecotoxicol Environ Saf. 2023 Apr 15;255:114789. doi: 10.1016/j.ecoenv.2023.114789. Epub 2023 Mar 16.
Exposure of human to parabens (commonly used preservatives) is inevitable due to their extensively applied in numerous consumer products. Thus, a reliable noninvasive matrix reflecting long-term exposure to parabens is essential for human biomonitoring study. Human nails are potentially a valuable alternative for measuring intergrated exposure to parabens. In this work, we collected 100 paired nail and urine samples from university students in Nanjing, China, and measured simultaneously for six parent parabens and four metabolites. Methylparaben (MeP), ethylparaben (EtP), and propylparaben (PrP) were three predominant paraben analogue in both matrices, with the median concentrations being 12.9, 0.753, and 3.42 ng/mL in urine, and 1540, 154, and 961 ng/g in nail, respectively, while 4-hydroxybenzoic acid (4-HB) and 3,4-dihydroxybenzoic acid (3,4-DHB) were the most abundant metabolites (median values of 143 and 35.9 ng/mL, respectively) in urine. Gender-related analysis suggested that females exposed to more higher parabens than males. Significantly positive correlations were found between levels of MeP, PrP, EtP, and OH-MeP (r = 0.54-0.62, p < 0.01) in paired urine and nail samples. Our result here suggests that human nails, as an emerging biospecimen, are a potentially valuable biological matrix to evaluate human long-term exposure to parabens.
由于对羟基苯甲酸酯（常用防腐剂）广泛应用于众多消费品中，人类不可避免地会接触到它们。因此，一种可靠的、能反映长期接触对羟基苯甲酸酯情况的非侵入性基质对于人类生物监测研究至关重要。人类指甲有可能成为测量对羟基苯甲酸酯综合暴露量的一种有价值的替代物。在这项研究中，我们收集了来自中国南京大学生的100对指甲和尿液样本，并同时测定了六种母体对羟基苯甲酸酯和四种代谢物。对羟基苯甲酸甲酯（MeP）、对羟基苯甲酸乙酯（EtP）和对羟基苯甲酸丙酯（PrP）是两种基质中三种主要的对羟基苯甲酸酯类似物，尿液中的中位浓度分别为12.9、0.753和3.42 ng/mL，指甲中的中位浓度分别为1540、154和961 ng/g，而4-羟基苯甲酸（4-HB）和3,4-二羟基苯甲酸（3,4-DHB）是尿液中含量最丰富的代谢物（中位值分别为143和35.9 ng/mL）。性别相关分析表明，女性接触的对羟基苯甲酸酯比男性更多。在配对的尿液和指甲样本中，发现MeP、PrP、EtP和OH-MeP的水平之间存在显著正相关（r = 0.54 - 0.62，p < 0.01）。我们的研究结果表明，人类指甲作为一种新兴的生物样本，是评估人类长期接触对羟基苯甲酸酯的一种潜在有价值的生物基质。
