E-SCREEN Assay를 이용한 내분비계 장애물질의 정량적 평가

Quantitative Assessment of Xenoestrogenic Environmental Pollutants using E-SCREEN Assay

There is a growing concern that a wide variety of chemicals released into the environment can disrupt the endocrine system of fish, wildlife and humans. Endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCS) include pesticides such as DDT, lindane and atrazine, the food packaging chemicals, phthalates and bisphenol A, alkylphenol ethoxylate detergents and the chemical industry by-products, dioxins. Xenoestrogens in the environment have been argued about health risk, because of estrogen mimetic chemicals are exposed only small amounts to human. A number of in vivo and in vitro assays are now in use to assess the activity of xenoestrogens in the environment. A human breast cancer cell line (MCF-7) was used to develop in vitro screening assay for the detection of xenoestrogenic environmental pollutants. The E-SCREEN (MCF7-BUS) assay is proposed as a reliable, easy and rapid-to-perform method. To optimize and validate this method before it can be used routinely, several phenol compounds and pesticides suspected to be estrogenic were tested using E-SCREEN assay. The results showed that this method is a valuable tool for screening potential estrogen-mimicking environmental pollutants and quantitative determination of estrogenicity.