Exposure to endocrine disrupting chemicals in personal care products

Antimicrobials and UV filters are used as additives in a broad range of personal care and consumer products such as soaps, cosmetics and disinfectants to protect against physicalchemical and biological agents. Unfortunately, some of them have been proven to have an endocrine disrupting activity, posing a threat to public health. Furthermore, due to their hydrophobic nature, chemicals in personal care products are potentially bioaccumulative. There are also concerns with regards to possible effects of antimicrobials in personal care products on the development of antimicrobial resistance. However very little is known about human exposure to these chemicals. In this work the biotransformation of 8 UV filters (4-benzylphenol, benzophenone-1, benzophenone-2, homosalate, 4,4’-dihydroxybenzophenone, ensulizole, octocrylene, 3benzylidene camphor) and 3 antimicrobials (4-chloro-3,5-dimethylphenol, 4-chloro-3methylephenol, chlorothymol,) was investigated with the aim of identifying human-specific metabolites suitable as biomarkers of exposure by conducting in vitro experiments with human liver subcellular fractions, followed by in-vivo studies in pooled urine and wastewater. Analysis of samples was performed utilising high resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS) coupled with high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Raw data extracted from the system were processed with MetID software (Advanced Chemistry Development, Inc., ACD/Labs, UK) for prediction of metabolite structures. As a result, for the first time, possible phases-I and II metabolites were identified and their presence in wastewater samples was observed suggesting that the impact of the exposure to antimicrobials, UV filters and many more chemicals might need to be reconsidered. Furthermore, we provide a new analytical approach based on a combination of in-vitro experiments and semitargeted wastewater screening for future metabolism and epidemiological studies.
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