Relative Potencies of Aroclor Mixtures Derived from Avian in Vitro Bioassays: Comparisons with Calculated Toxic Equivalents

摘要

The World Health Organization toxic equivalency factors (WHO-TEFs) for birds were developed to simplify risk assessments of environmental mixtures of dioxin-like compounds (DLCs). Under this framework, toxic equivalents (TEQs) are used to represent the toxic potency of DLC mixtures as an equivalent concentration of 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin. Recently, a luciferase reporter gene (LRG) assay, measuring aryl hydrocarbon receptor 1 (AHRl)-mediated gene expression, accurately predicted the relative potency of individual polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) congeners in different avian species. The study presented here used the LRG assay to predict the relative potency of Aroclors 1016, 1221, 1242, 1248, 12S4, and 1260 on induction of LRG activity in cells transfected with chicken, ring-necked pheasant, or Japanese quail AHRl constructs. LRG assay results were compared to (1) results of ethoxyresorufin-O-deethylase (EROD) assays conducted in chicken hepatocytes and (2) calculated TEQs from the literature. The relative potencies of Arodors were similar between the LRG and EROD assays, and bioassay-derived TEQs for the chicken dosely resembled calculated TEQs. However, LRG assay-derived TEQs for the Japanese quail construct were 1-2 orders of magnitude higher than calculated TEQs for Arodors 12S4 and 1016. These results suggest that the WHO-TEFs are not representative of relative PCB potency for all avian species.