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Integrating exposure knowledge and serum suspect screening as a new approach to biomonitoring: An application in firefighters and office workers

Rachel Grashow, Vincent Bessonneau, Roy R. Gerona, Aolin Wang, Jessica Trowbridge, Thomas Lin, Heather Buren, Ruthann A. Rudel, Rachel Morello-Frosch
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/630848
Rachel Grashow
1Silent Spring Institute, Newton, MA, USA
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Vincent Bessonneau
1Silent Spring Institute, Newton, MA, USA
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Roy R. Gerona
2Clinical Toxicology and Environmental Biomonitoring Lab, Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences, University of California, San Francisco, California, USA
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Aolin Wang
3Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment, Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences & Bakar Computational Health Sciences Institute, University of California, San Francisco, California, USA
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Jessica Trowbridge
4School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley, California, USA
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  • For correspondence: jesstro@berkeley.edu
Thomas Lin
2Clinical Toxicology and Environmental Biomonitoring Lab, Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences, University of California, San Francisco, California, USA
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Heather Buren
6United Fire Service Women, San Francisco, California, USA
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Ruthann A. Rudel
1Silent Spring Institute, Newton, MA, USA
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Rachel Morello-Frosch
4School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley, California, USA
5Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management University of California, Berkeley, California, USA
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ABSTRACT

Background Women firefighters are exposed to recognized and probable carcinogens, yet there are few studies of chemical exposures and associated health concerns, such as breast cancer. Biomonitoring often requires a priori selection of compounds to be measured, and so may not detect important, lesser known, exposures.

Objectives The Women Firefighters Biomonitoring Collaborative (WFBC) created a biological sample archive and conducted a general suspect screen (GSS) to address this data gap.

Methods Using liquid chromatography-quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (LC-QTOF/MS) we sought to identify candidate chemicals of interest in serum samples from 83 women firefighters (FF) and 79 office workers (OW) in San Francisco. Through the GSS approach we identified chemical peaks by matching accurate mass from serum samples against a custom chemical database of 740 slightly polar phenolic and acidic compounds, including many of relevance to firefighting or breast cancer etiology. We then selected chemicals for confirmation based on a priori criteria: 1) detection frequency or peak area differences between OW and FF; 2) evidence of mammary carcinogenicity, estrogenicity, or genotoxicity; and 3) not currently measured in large biomonitoring studies.

Results We detected 620 chemicals that matched 300 molecular formulas in the WFBC database, including phthalate metabolites, phosphate flame retardant metabolites, phenols, pesticides, nitro-and nitroso-compounds, and per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances. The average number of chemicals from the database that were detected in participants was 72 and 70 in FF and OW, respectively. We confirmed 8 of the 20 prioritized suspect chemicals –including two alkylphenols, ethyl paraben, BPF, PFOSAA, benzophenone-3, benzyl p-hydroxybenzoate, and triphenyl phosphate--by running a matrix spike of the reference standards and using m/z, retention time and the confirmation of at least two fragment ions as criteria for matching.

Conclusion GSS provides a powerful high-throughput approach to identify and prioritize novel chemicals for biomonitoring and health studies.

Footnotes

  • ↵* Joint corresponding authors

Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. All rights reserved. No reuse allowed without permission.
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Posted May 10, 2019.
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Integrating exposure knowledge and serum suspect screening as a new approach to biomonitoring: An application in firefighters and office workers
Rachel Grashow, Vincent Bessonneau, Roy R. Gerona, Aolin Wang, Jessica Trowbridge, Thomas Lin, Heather Buren, Ruthann A. Rudel, Rachel Morello-Frosch
bioRxiv 630848; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/630848
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Integrating exposure knowledge and serum suspect screening as a new approach to biomonitoring: An application in firefighters and office workers
Rachel Grashow, Vincent Bessonneau, Roy R. Gerona, Aolin Wang, Jessica Trowbridge, Thomas Lin, Heather Buren, Ruthann A. Rudel, Rachel Morello-Frosch
bioRxiv 630848; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/630848

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