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Using the ECOTOXicology Knowledgebase Protocols for Identification and Evidence Mapping of Ecological Toxicity Data for Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS)
Citation:
Hoff, D., J. Olker, A. Pomplun, A. Anderson, D. Peterson, G. Elonen, A. Pilli, AND C. Elonen. Using the ECOTOXicology Knowledgebase Protocols for Identification and Evidence Mapping of Ecological Toxicity Data for Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS). SETAC North America 42nd Annual meeting, Portland, OR, November 14 - 18, 2021. https://doi.org/10.23645/epacomptox.19103081
Impact/Purpose:
Presentation to the SETAC North America 42nd Annual meeting Nov. 2021. Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) have potential ecological impacts, yet the risks are challenging to characterize due to the number of PFAS. It is unreasonable to evaluate each compound with traditional whole animal toxicity testing. Thus, chemical assessments must rely instead on existing empirical data, computational models, and predictive tools with limited targeted testing. This presentation describes efforts to comprehensively and systematically assemble and describe available evidence for ecological effects of PFAS using the well-established protocols of the ECOTOXicology Knowledgebase. These efforts identified data potentially suitable for ecological risk assessments, identification of sensitive/susceptible species, and development of ecological benchmarks and thresholds. Here we provide the status of these efforts to identify and curate PFAS toxicity data for ecologically-relevant species, highlight gaps in biological species and classes of PFAS, and present on-going efforts incorporate new tools and automated and semi-automated methods to increase the efficiency of curating these data.
Description:
The ECOTOXicology Knowledgebase (ECOTOX, www.epa.gov/ecotox) is the world’s largest compilation of ecological toxicity data that has been curated over 30 years to support chemical assessments and research. Over the last three years, the well-established ECOTOX systematic and transparent procedures have been used to identify, assemble, and illustrate existing empirical toxicity data for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). There is a recognized need to characterize potential ecological impacts of PFAS, however assessing the risks is challenging due to the large number of PFAS and ecological species potentially impacted. Thus, chemical assessments must initially rely on existing empirical data and computational models. Our goal was to identify and make readily available ecological effects data for PFAS through a) conducting comprehensive literature searches for over 400 PFAS names and CASRNs, b) reviewing the resulting list of over 160,000 references at the title and abstract level, c) evaluating acceptability for inclusion into ECOTOX at the full-text level and d) extraction of relevant information (species, chemicals, test methods, toxicity results) from all acceptable studies. To meet the challenge of an unprecedented level of information to gather and filter through, advanced data analytic tools were incorporated into the ECOTOX pipeline. This focused effort has resulted in the addition of over 700 references added to ECOTOX, which now includes over 25,000 test results from nearly 900 PFAS references. This total includes results from ~150 PFAS and over 450 biological species. Characterization of the extent, distribution, and types of evidence of the curated dataset to-date indicate that over 50 % of the data were from studies on PFOS and PFOA in about 14 species of fish, aquatic invertebrates, and birds. However, the diversity of chemicals and species represented has been expanding rapidly as we incorporate data from recently published studies. Traditional growth/reproduction/mortality toxicity endpoints represented about 25% of reported effects, while 34% were biochemical or genetic effects. This effort identified and curated relevant ecological toxicity data for PFAS suitable for ecological risk assessments and identified data gaps of biological species and classes of PFAS for prioritizing research needs. This abstract does not necessarily reflect US EPA policy.
URLs/Downloads:
DOI: Using the ECOTOXicology Knowledgebase Protocols for Identification and Evidence Mapping of Ecological Toxicity Data for Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS)
ECOTOX_PFAS_SETAC2021_SCICON4.PDF (PDF, NA pp, 2683.549 KB, about PDF)