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Untargeted MSn-based Monitoring of Glucuronides in Fish: Screen-ing Complex Mixtures for Contaminants with Biological Relevance
Citation:
Mosley, J., M. Evich, I. Ntai, Tim Collette, J. Cavallin, Dan Villeneuve, G. Ankley, AND D. Ekman. Untargeted MSn-based Monitoring of Glucuronides in Fish: Screen-ing Complex Mixtures for Contaminants with Biological Relevance. 18th International Conference of the Metabolomics Society, Valencia, N/A, SPAIN, June 19 - 23, 2022.
Impact/Purpose:
More effective prioritization of environmental contaminants can be achieved through untargeted detection of glucuronidated biotransformation products in fish using high resolution accurate mass MS.
Description:
The increasing complexity of contaminant mixtures in surface waters has made traditional assessments of risk to human health and the environment progressively more difficult, requiring new approaches. For example, novel strategies are needed to identify contaminants for which routine chemical monitoring is not conducted, in addition to prioritizing both routinely detected and undetected chemicals for biological relevance. Tracking biotransformation products in biofluids and tissues in an untargeted fashion facilitates the identification of chemicals taken up by the resident species (e.g., fish), and can inform risk assessments based on contaminant detoxification/toxification pathways. As a first step, we have investigated xenobiotic glucuronidation, which is arguably the most important phase II metabolism pathway for the bulk of pharmaceuticals, pesticides, and other environmental contaminants. Here, we report the application of an untargeted high-resolution mass spectrometry-based approach for identifying glucuronides in bile collected from male and female fathead minnows exposed to wastewater treatment plant effluent. This analysis revealed the presence of over 70 biologically relevant xenobiotics in the treated effluent, the majority of which are not targets of conventional contaminant monitoring. These results highlight the need to employ biologically based untargeted screening methods when evaluating chemical contaminants in complex environmental mixtures.
