ToxSci Advance Access published online on April 15, 2003
Toxicological Sciences, doi:10.1093/toxsci/kfg042
Toxicological Sciences © Society of Toxicology 2003; all rights reserved
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
1 Department of Biology, Samford University, Birmingham, Alabama 35229 USA
* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: raangus{at}uab.edu.
The Fenholloway River near Perry, FL, USA receives effluent from a paper mill and contains populations of masculinized female eastern mosquitofish, Gambusia holbrooki. A previous study identified the androgen precursor androstenedione at a low concentration (0.14 nM) in water samples from the river. The present study makes use of a toxicity identification and evaluation approach that includes solid phase extraction and high pressure liquid chromatography purification, androgen receptor transcription assays and liquid chromatography mass spectroscopy, to identify and characterize steroids in the Fenholloway River sediment. Androstenedione (2.4 nM) and progesterone (155 nM) were identified in the river sediment at concentrations greater than in the river water column (0.14 nM androstenedione, and 6.5 nM progesterone. Spring Creek, a comparison stream that does not receive mill effluent, contained low levels of progesterone (0.3 nM) but no androstenedione in the sediment. The data are consistent with the hypothesis that pine pulp-derived phytosteroids in the paper mill effluent accumulate in river sediment where they are converted by microbes into progesterone and this into androstenedione and other bioactive steroids. Equally important is that normal streams with much less organic matter still contain progesterone, but at dramatically lower levels. The presence of androgens and androgen precursors in the river water and sediment likely contributes to the masculinized phenotype of the female Gambusia holbrooki in the Fenholloway River.
© 2003 Society of Toxicology
Environmental Toxicology
Androstenedione and Progesterone in the Sediment of a River Receiving Paper Mill Effluent
2 Laboratories for Reproductive Biology and the Department of Pediatrics and the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599, USA
3 Biology Department, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama 35294, USA
4 Comprehensive Cancer Center Mass Spectrometry Shared Facility, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama 35294, USA
Abstract 
CiteULike 
Connotea 
Del.icio.us What's this?
This article has been cited by other articles:
|
|
 |
|
  A. K. Hotchkiss, C. V. Rider, C. R. Blystone, V. S. Wilson, P. C. Hartig, G. T. Ankley, P. M. Foster, C. L. Gray, and L. E. Gray Fifteen Years after "Wingspread"--Environmental Endocrine Disrupters and Human and Wildlife Health: Where We are Today and Where We Need to Go Toxicol. Sci., October 1, 2008; 105(2): 235 - 259. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 M. Fahrbach, J. Kuever, M. Remesch, B. E. Huber, P. Kampfer, W. Dott, and J. Hollender Steroidobacter denitrificans gen. nov., sp. nov., a steroidal hormone-degrading gammaproteobacterium Int J Syst Evol Microbiol, September 1, 2008; 58(9): 2215 - 2223. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 A.-M. Jacobsen, A. Lorenzen, R. Chapman, and E. Topp Persistence of Testosterone and 17{beta}-Estradiol in Soils Receiving Swine Manure or Municipal Biosolids J. Environ. Qual., April 20, 2005; 34(3): 861 - 871. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|