Expert opinion on toxicity profiling – report from a NORMAN expert group meeting.
| Authors | |
|---|---|
| Year of publication | 2013 |
| Type | Article in Periodical |
| Magazine / Source | Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Doi | http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ieam.1395 |
| Field | Environment influence on health |
| Keywords | Toxicity profile; Effect directed analysis; Water framework directive; Bioassays; Biomarkers |
| Description | This article describes the outcome and follow up discussions of an expert group meeting (Amsterdam, October 9, 2009) on the applicability of toxicity profiling for diagnostic environmental risk assessment. A toxicity profile was defined as a toxicological fingerprint of a sample, ranging froma pure compound to a complex mixture, obtained by testing the sample or its extract for its activity toward a battery of biological endpoints. The expert group concluded that toxicity profiling is an effective first tier tool for screening the integrated hazard of complex environmental mixtures with known and unknown toxicologically active constituents. In addition, toxicity profiles can be used for prioritization of sampling locations, for identification of hot spots, and in combination with effect directed analysis (EDA) or toxicity identification and evaluation (TIE) approaches for establishing cause effect relationships by identifying emerging pollutants responsible for the observed toxic potency. Small volume in vitro bioassays are especially applicable for these purposes, as they are relatively cheap and fast with costs comparable to chemical analyses, and the results are toxicologically more relevant and more suitable for realistic risk assessment. For regulatory acceptance in the European Union, toxicity profiling terminology should keep as close as possible to the European Water Framework Directive (WFD) terminology, and validation, standardization, statistical analyses, and other quality aspects of toxicity profiling should be further elaborated. |
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