The use and disposal of chemicals or drugs may contaminate the land, water bodies, and air. These contaminated environments, in turn, will affect organisms living in them. Organisms in such polluted environments may at risk from chemical exposures (air: foliar uptake by plants and/or respiratory exposures). Ecotoxicity is the study that determines the hazardous effects of certain compounds to the ecosystem, including the environment, animal (nonhuman and human), plants and microbial. Ecotoxicity reports are required for the manufacture of chemicals, drugs, and pesticides for the registration and approval. Creative Biolabs is capable of providing certain ecotoxicity evaluation services.
Figure 1. Ecotoxicity in aquatic environments
Bioassays that test the toxicity of drugs for organisms in aquatic, sediment, soil and terrestrial provides crucial data as the basis of regulatory schemes for chemical registration or transportation. Primary measurements are the end point measurements for survival, growth, and reproduction under acute and chronic exposures. Important terrestrial assay data normally includes germination and growth of plants; survival, growth, and reproduction of various soil invertebrates, bees, and birds; survival, growth, and reproduction of terrestrial mammals (e.g., rodents, dogs and nonhuman primates); respiration, decomposition, and nitrogen fixation of soil microbial. Additionally, according to the application of the drug, livestock testing may be useful. For pesticides and pharmaceuticals, these tests are normally included. Aquatic bioassays normally include tests on fish in the water (e.g. Daphnia), animals living in the sediments and near the water (Chironomus, Hyalella, oyster, and amphibians).
In recent years, some new methods are introduced into this field and may assist ecotoxicity studies, for example, ‘In Silico Estimates of Ecotoxicological Hazard', ‘Chemical Categories Approach', and ‘Quantitative Structure Activity Relationships' (QSARs). Through computational toxicology, in silico prediction methods employ computational chemistry and mechanistic toxicology programs to estimate the ecotoxicity of chemicals. Chemical categories approach evaluates hazard data of an untested drug by referring to one or more structurally similar surrogates. Computer programs used in QSARs evaluate hazard data of an untested drug according to its chemical structure and comparison to similar known compounds.
Ecotoxicity in different environments may have different patterns and different effects. However, for ecotoxicity tests, information for toxicity to terrestrial organisms is sparse while aquatic tests are more commonly weighted. This is due to the facts that water bodies are most commonly used for the discharge of various waste streams and the drug diffusion and exposure are faster.
Acute aquatic toxicity: after short-term exposures of aquatic animals and plants to a substance, the hazard of the substance to living aquatic organisms are evaluated.
Chronic aquatic toxicity: in long-term (in relation to the life-expend of the organisms) exposures, the hazard of a substance to aquatic animals and plants is determined.
Degradability: the persistence of a substance in the environment.
Bioaccumulation or bioconcentration: the accumulation of a substance in living organisms. Bioconcentration factor (BCF) are calculated and used as an indication of toxicity.
Creative Biolabs can assist customers to generate certain ecotoxicity data. For more detailed information, please feel free to contact us or directly sent us an inquiry.
Reference
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