Estrogenic compounds in wastewater: biological effects analysis, determination of compound distribution and development of removal strategies

Abstract

The growing urbanization process has been increasing the size of population in urban areas, and the environmental impacts associated are at a rate never observed in history. Among these impacts is the one due to wastewater production, which collects the major part of urban byproducts. Public health strategies for treatment of such waters decreased mortality, and the water-vehicled diseases, and increased the quality of life. However, technological development generated new compounds with estrogenic effects, whose waste product is probably directed to rivers. These environmental estrogenic compounds are molecules that affect the endocrine system, the embryo development, the brain and the heart, even at very low concentrations. Although these substances are widely studied in many countries there is no work describing the situation in Brazil. This Project aims to investigate the distribution of such compounds in wastewater treatment plants of São Paulo, its effects in the behavior and estrogen receptor (ER) distribution in the brain, as well the physiology and cellular phenotypes in the heart tissues in animal model. Moreover, animal assays will allow determining the degree of contamination of wastewater, which will be subjected to three strategies of removal of estrogenic compounds: activated charcoal, yeast cells displaying the ligand binding domain (LBD) of ER, and agarose resin beads covered by LBD molecules that were produced in bacteria. The possible outcomes of this work include finding a strategy for treatment of wastewater contaminated with estrogenic compounds, as well as quantification of these molecules and analysis of its effects in animal physiology as a biomarker for wastewater treatment and quality control. (AU)