Mutagenicity and estrogenicity of raw water and drinking water in an industrialized city in the Yangtze River Delta.

Public concern was aroused by frequently reported water pollution incidents in Taihu Lake and the Yangtze River. The pollution also caught and sustained the attention of the scientific community. From 2010 to 2016, raw water and drinking water samples were continually collected at Waterworks A and B (Taihu Lake) and Waterworks C (Yangtze River). The non-volatile organic pollutants in the water samples were extracted by solid phase extraction. Ames tests and yeast estrogen screen (YES) assays were conducted to evaluate the respective mutagenic and estrogenic effects. Water samples from the Yangtze River-based Waterworks C possessed higher mutagenicity than those from Taihu Lake-based Waterworks A (P＜0.001) and Waterworks B (P = 0.026). Water treatment enhanced the direct mutagenicity (P = 0.022), and weakened the estrogenicity of the raw water (P＜0.001) with a median removal rate of 100%. In fact, very few of the finished samples showed estrogenic activity. Raw water samples from Waterworks A showed weaker estrogenicity than those from Waterworks B (P = 0.034) and Waterworks C (P = 0.006). In summary, mutagenic effects in drinking water and estrogenic effects in raw water merited sustained attention. The Yangtze River was more seriously polluted by mutagenic and estrogenic chemicals than Taihu Lake was.

[Mutagenicity study of water samples from a waterworks taking Yangtze River as its water source in Jiangsu Province].

OBJECTIVE: To understand the occurrence and change of mutagencity of water samples in the process of drinking water treatment and distribution in a waterworks taking Yangtze River as its water source in Jiangsu Province. METHODS: Large volume of inlet water, finished water and tap water samples were extracted by XAD-2 resin. Mutagencities were assessed by Ames test and a mutation ratio( MR) of 2 or greater was judged as a positive result. RESULTS: Compared with the samples with S9, samples without S9 presented more positive results( P = 0. 005). That water treatment elevated MR values( P = 0. 007) while the pipe transport made MR values down( P = 0. 038) was observed in samples without S9. The tap water showed weaker mutagenicities than the raw water in samples with S9( P = 0. 008). Compared to the raw water samples, the finished water samples showed more positive results(-S9) and lower MR values( + S9, P =0. 002). CONCLUSION: Significant mutagenicities of water samples from the Yangtze Riverand its processed water were presented, and frame shit and direct mutagens deserved special concern.

Occurrence and change of estrogenic activity in the process of drinking water treatment and distribution.

From 2010 to 2012, the Yangtze River and Hanjiang River (Wuhan section) were monitored for estrogenic activities during various water level periods. Using a recombinant yeast estrogen screen (YES) assay, 54 water samples were evaluated over the course of nine sampling campaigns. The mean 17ß-estradiol equivalent (EEQ) value of raw water from the Yangtze River was 0-5.20 ng/L; and the EEQ level from the Hanjiang River was 0-3.22 ng/L. In Wuhan, drinking water treatment plants (DWTPs) using conventional treatments reduced estrogenic activities by more than 89 %. In general, water samples collected during the level period showed weaker estrogenic activities compared to those collected during the dry period. The samples collected in 2010 showed the strongest estrogenic activities of the 3-year period. The lack of correlations between estrogenic activities and selected common water quality parameters showed that estrogenic activity cannot be tied to common water quality parameters.

Air pollution and blood lipid markers levels: Estimating short and long-term effects on elderly hypertension inpatients complicated with or without type 2 diabetes.

With the development of society and the economy, many Chinese cities are shrouded in pollution haze for much of the year. Scientific studies have identified various adverse effects of air pollutants on human beings. However, the relationships between air pollution and blood lipid levels are still unclear. The objective of this study is to explore the short and long-term effects of air pollution on eight blood lipid markers among elderly hypertension inpatients complicated with or without type 2 diabetes (T2D). Blood lipid markers which met the pre-established inclusion criteria were exported from the medical record system. Air pollution data were acquired from the official environmental protection website. Associations between the air quality index and the blood lipid indexes were analyzed by one-way ANOVA and further Bonferroni correction. In an exposure time of 7 days or longer, blood lipid markers were somewhat affected by poor air quality. However, the results could not predict whether atherosclerosis would be promoted or inhibited by poorer air condition. Changes of blood lipid markers of hypertension inpatients with or without T2D were not completely the same, but no blood lipid markers had an opposite trend between the two populations. The air quality index was associated with changes to blood lipid markers to some extent in a population of hypertension inpatients with or without T2D. Further studies are needed to investigate the potential mechanism by which air pollutants induce blood lipids changes.

Occurrence and removal of phenolic endocrine disrupting chemicals in the water treatment processes.

This paper evaluated the occurrence and removal efficiency of four selected phenolic endocrine disrupting chemicals (bisphenol A (BPA), octylphenol (OP), nonylphenol (NP) and diethylstilbestrol (DES)) in two drinking waterworks in Jiangsu province which take source water from Taihu Lake. The recombined yeast estrogen screen (YES) and liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) were applied to assess the estrogenicity and detect the estrogens in the samples. The estrogen equivalents (EEQs) ranged from nd (not detected) to 2.96 ng/L, and the estrogenic activities decreased along the processes. Among the 32 samples, DES prevailed in all samples, with concentrations ranging 1.46-12.0 ng/L, BPA, OP and NP were partially detected, with concentrations ranging from nd to 17.73 ng/L, nd to 0.49 ng/L and nd to 3.27 ng/L, respectively. DES was found to be the main contributor to the estrogenicity (99.06%), followed by NP (0.62%), OP (0.23%) and BPA (0.09%). From the observation of treatment efficiency, the advanced treatment processes presented much higher removal ratio in reducing DES, the biodegradation played an important role in removing BPA, ozonation and pre-oxidation showed an effective removal on all the four estrogens; while the conventional ones can also reduce all the four estrogens.

Mutagenicity of drinking water sampled from the Yangtze River and Hanshui River (Wuhan section) and correlations with water quality parameters.

A total of 54 water samples were collected during three different hydrologic periods (level period, wet period, and dry period) from Plant A and Plant B (a source for Yangtze River and Hanshui River water, respectively), and several water parameters, such as chemical oxygen demand (COD), turbidity, and total organic carbon (TOC), were simultaneously analyzed. The mutagenicity of the water samples was evaluated using the Ames test with Salmonella typhimurium strains TA98 and TA100. According to the results, the organic compounds in the water were largely frame-shift mutagens, as positive results were found for most of the tests using TA98. All of the finished water samples exhibited stronger mutagenicity than the relative raw and distribution water samples, with water samples collected from Plant B presenting stronger mutagenic strength than those from Plant A. The finished water samples from Plant A displayed a seasonal-dependent variation. Water parameters including COD (r = 0.599, P = 0.009), TOC (r = 0.681, P = 0.02), UV254 (r = 0.711, P = 0.001), and total nitrogen (r = 0.570, P = 0.014) exhibited good correlations with mutagenicity (TA98), at 2.0 L/plate, which bolsters the argument of the importance of using mutagenicity as a new parameter to assess the quality of drinking water.