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Ecological Thresholds of Toxicological Concern: A Review
Citation:
Barron, M., R. Otter, K. Connors, A. Kienzler, AND M. Embry. Ecological Thresholds of Toxicological Concern: A Review. Frontiers in Toxicology. Frontiers, Lausanne, Switzerland, 3:640183, (2021). https://doi.org/10.3389/ftox.2021.640183
Impact/Purpose:
This manuscript is an invited review of the ecological threshold of toxicological concern (ecoTTC) approach to toxicity extrapolation for groups of toxicologically or chemically similar compounds. The paper will be published in a high impact journal in a special series focused on the TTC approach. The impact of this includes communication of an important tool that will facilitate chemical screening and hazard assessment of chemicals that have limited data. The paper identifies ongoing and future research needs that will improve the ecoTTC approach. Ultimately advancement of the approach and application in chemical assessments will make chemical screening and prioritization more efficient and cost effective by identifying those compounds of low risk and those chemicals of greatest concern to public health and the environment.
Description:
The ecological threshold of toxicological concern (ecoTTC) is analogous to traditional human health based TTCs but with derivation and application to ecological species. An ecoTTC is computed from the probability distribution of predicted no effect concentrations (PNECs) derived from either chronic or extrapolated acute toxicity data for toxicologically or chemically similar groups of chemicals. EcoTTCs have seen increasing use in environmental risk assessment and a computational platform has been developed for derivation with aquatic species toxicity data (https://envirotoxdatabase.org/). Current research and development areas include assessing mode of action-based chemical groupings, conservatism in estimated PNECs and ecoTTCs compared to existing regulatory values, and the influence of taxa composition in the distribution of PNEC values. The ecoTTC continues to develop as a valuable alternative strategy within the toolbox of traditional and new approach methods for ecological chemical assessment.
URLs/Downloads:
DOI: Ecological Thresholds of Toxicological Concern: A Review
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