Citation:

Louis, G. AND T. Stoker. Endocrine Disruptors (Chapter 14) in Mammalian Toxicology Book. Chapter 14, Mohamed Abou-Donia (ed.), Mammalian Toxicolgy,. John Wiley & Sons, Inc, Hoboken, NJ, 1:289-309, (2015).

Impact/Purpose:

This is a book chapter on endocrine disrupting chemicals for a Mammalian Toxicology text book. This chapter describes the potential targets of endocrine disruptors and EPA's current EDSP Tier 1 screening assays.

Description:

Endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) are exogenous substances that alter endocrine system function(s) and consequently cause adverse health effects in intact organisms or its progeny. The endocrine system is important for a wide range of biological processes, from normal cell signaling to growth and normal development of the organism. EDCs can act by a variety of mechanisms from altered steroid synthesis or binding to altered maintenance of pregnancy or lactation. There are a variety of methods currently available to elucidate the target sites for the effects of EDCs on biological systems. The U.S. EPA’s Endocrine Disruptor Screening Program (EDSP) consists of several optimized and validated cell- and animal- based, mammalian and non-mammalian assays to test for the potential endocrine activity of EDCs.

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