International audience | The Telesphore project aims to identify and to quantify the transfers of pharmaceuticals residues and biocides and their related processes from biosolids and manure spread on grassland as fertilizers. Real land-spreading conditions were reproduced on six in-situ lysimeters and the pathway of pharmaceuticals and biocides was tracked by sampling infiltrated water and soil over one year. The study has focused on 32 pharmaceuticals, biocides and their transformation products, selected from their previous detection in several organic fertilizers. Six months after biosolids and manure spreading, the soil concentrations were in the range of nanograms per gram of soil and only few compounds were detected in infiltrated water. Ketoprofen was found to be the most mobile and persistent pharmaceutical compound after biosolids application whereas thiabendazole was the most frequently detected substance in infiltrated water after manure amendment.

International audience | The Telesphore project aims to identify and to quantify the transfers of pharmaceuticals residues and biocides and their related processes from biosolids and manure spread on grassland as fertilizers. Real land-spreading conditions were reproduced on six in-situ lysimeters and the pathway of pharmaceuticals and biocides was tracked by sampling infiltrated water and soil over one year. The study has focused on 32 pharmaceuticals, biocides and their transformation products, selected from their previous detection in several organic fertilizers. Six months after biosolids and manure spreading, the soil concentrations were in the range of nanograms per gram of soil and only few compounds were detected in infiltrated water. Ketoprofen was found to be the most mobile and persistent pharmaceutical compound after biosolids application whereas thiabendazole was the most frequently detected substance in infiltrated water after manure amendment.

Mutations are an important origin of antibiotic resistance in bacteria. While there is increasing evidence showing promoted resistance mutations by environmental stresses, no retrospective research has yet been conducted on this phenomenon and its mechanisms. Herein, we summarized the phenomena of stress-elevated resistance mutations in bacteria, generalized the regulatory mechanisms and discussed the environmental and human health implications. It is shown that both chemical pollutants, such as antibiotics and other pharmaceuticals, biocides, metals, nanoparticles and disinfection byproducts, and non-chemical stressors, such as ultraviolet radiation, electrical stimulation and starvation, are capable of elevating resistance mutations in bacteria. Notably, resistance mutations are more likely to occur under sublethal or subinhibitory levels of these stresses, suggesting a considerable environmental concern. Further, mechanisms for stress-induced mutations are summarized in several points, namely oxidative stress, SOS response, DNA replication and repair systems, RpoS regulon and biofilm formation, all of which are readily provoked by common environmental stresses. Given bacteria in the environment are confronted with a variety of unfavorable conditions, we propose that the stress-elevated resistance mutations are a universal phenomenon in the environment and represent a nonnegligible risk factor for ecosystems and human health. The present review identifies a need for taking into account the pollutants’ ability to elevate resistance mutations when assessing their environmental and human health risks and highlights the necessity of including resistance mutations as a target to prevent antibiotic resistance evolution.

In this study, the occurrence of pharmaceuticals, hormones and bacterial community structures was studied at a wastewater treatment plant in Finland having two different parallel treatment lines: conventional activated sludge (CAS) treatment with a sedimentation stage, and a membrane bioreactor (MBR). Influent and effluents were sampled seven times over a period of one year. The bacterial communities of the influent samples showed a high degree of similarity, except for the February sample which had substantially lower diversity. There was significant fluctuation in the species richness and diversity of the effluent samples, although both effluents showed a similar trend. A marked decrease in diversity was observed in effluents collected between August and November. The initiation of nitrogen removal as a result of an increase in temperature could explain the changes in microbial community structures. In overall terms, suspended solids, bacteria and total organic matter (COD and BOD) were removed to a greater extent using the MBR, while higher Tot-N, Tot-P and nitrate removal rates were achieved using the CAS treatment. Estrone (E1) concentrations were also consistently at a lower level in the MBR effluents (<0.1–0.68 ng/l) compared to the CAS effluents (1.1–12 ng/l). Due to the high variation in the concentrations of pharmaceuticals, no clear superiority of either process could be demonstrated with certainty. The study highlights the importance of long-term sampling campaigns to detect variations effectively.

Human exposure to organic contaminants is widespread. Many of these contaminants show adverse health effects on human population. Human biomonitoring (HBM) follows the levels and the distribution of biomarkers of exposure (BoE), but it is usually done in a targeted manner. Suspect and non-targeted screening (SS/NTS) tend to find BoE in an agnostic way, without preselection of compounds, and include finding evidence of exposure to predicted, unpredicted known and unknown chemicals. This study describes the application of high-resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS)-based SS/NTS workflow for revealing organic contaminants in urine of a cohort of 200 children from Slovenia, aged 6–9 years. The children originated from two regions, urban and rural, and the latter were sampled in two time periods, summer and winter. We tentatively identified 74 BoE at the confidence levels of 2 and 3. These BoE belong to several classes of pharmaceuticals, personal care products, plasticizers and plastic related products, volatile organic compounds, nicotine, caffeine and pesticides. The risk of three pesticides, atrazine, amitraz and diazinon is of particular concern since their use was limited in the EU. Among BoE we tentatively identified compounds that have not yet been monitored in HBM schemes and demonstrate limited exposure data, such as bisphenol G, polyethylene glycols and their ethers. Furthermore, 7 compounds with unknown use and sources of exposure were tentatively identified, either indicating the entry of new chemicals into the market, or their metabolites and transformation products. Interestingly, several BoE showed location and time dependency. Globally, this study presents high-throughput approach to SS/NTS for HBM. The results shed a light on the exposure of Slovenian children and raise questions on potential adverse health effects of such mixtures on this vulnerable population.

Pharmaceutical contaminants in surface water have raised significant concerns because of their potential ecological risks. In particular, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)-related pharmaceuticals can be released to surface water and reduce environmental water quality. Therefore, reliable and robust sampling tools are required for monitoring pharmaceuticals. In this study, passive sampling devices of diffusive gradients in thin films (DGTs) were developed for sampling 35 pharmaceuticals in surface waters. The results demonstrated that hydrophilic–lipophilic balance (HLB) was more suitable for DGT-based devices compared with XAD18 and XDA1 resins. For most pharmaceuticals, the performance of the HLB-DGT devices were independent of pH (5.0–9.0), ionic strength (0.001–0.5 M), and flow velocity (0–400 rpm). The HLB-DGT devices exhibited linear pharmaceutical accumulation for 7 days, and time-weighted average concentrations provided by the HLB-DGT were comparable to those measured by conventional grab sampling. Compared to previous studies, we extended DGT monitoring to include three antiviral drugs used for COVID-19 treatment, which may inspire further exploration on identifying the effects of COVID-19 on ecological and human health.

The pollutants can enter water bodies at various point and non-point sources, and wastewater discharge remains a major pathway. Wastewater treatment effectively reduces contaminants, it is expensive and requires an eco-friendly and sustainable alternative approach to reduce treatment costs. Algae have recently emerged as a potentially cost-effective method to remediate toxic pollutants through the mechanism of biosorption, bioaccumulation, and intracellular degradation. Hence, before discharging the wastewater into the natural environment better solutions for environmental resource recovery and sustainable developments can be applied. More importantly, algae are a potential feedstock material for various industrial applications such as biofuel production. Currently, researchers are developing algae as a source for pharmaceuticals, biofuels, food additives, and bio-fertilizers. This review mainly focused on the potential of algae and their specific mechanisms involved in wastewater treatment and energy recovery systems leading to important industrial precursors. The review is highly beneficial for scientists, wastewater treatment plant operators, freshwater managers, and industrial communities to support the sustainable development of natural resources.

Nanobiomaterials (NBMs) are a special category of nanomaterials used in medicine. As applications of NBMs are very similar to pharmaceuticals, their environmental release patterns are likely similar as well. Different pharmaceuticals were detected in surface waters all over the world. Consequently, there exists a need to identify possible NBM exposure routes into the environment. As the application of many NBMs is only carried out at specific locations (hospitals), average predicted environmental concentrations (PECs) may not accurately represent their release to the environment. We estimated the local release of poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA), which is investigated for their use in drug delivery, to Swiss surface waters by using population data as well as type, size and location of hospitals as proxies. The total mean consumption of PGLA in Switzerland using an explorative full-market penetration scenario was calculated to be 770 kg/year. 105 hospitals were considered, which were connected to wastewater treatment plants and the receiving water body using graphic information system (GIS) modelling. The water body dataset contained 20,167 river segments and 210 lake polygons. Using the discharge of the river, we were able to calculate the PECs in different river segments. While we calculated high PLGA releases of 2.24 and 2.03 kg/year in large cities such as Geneva or Zurich, the resulting local PECs of 220 and 660 pg/l, respectively, were low due to the high river discharge (330 and 97 m³/s). High PLGA concentrations (up to 7,900 pg/l) on the other hand were calculated around smaller cities with local hospitals but also smaller receiving rivers (between 0.7 and 1.9 m³/s). Therefore, we conclude that population density does not accurately predict local concentration hotspots of NBMs, such as PLGA, that are administered in a hospital context. In addition, even at the locations with the highest predicted PLGA concentrations, the expected risk is low.

Embryonic exposure to environmental chemicals may result in specific chronic diseases in adulthood. Parabens, a type of environmental endocrine disruptors widely used in pharmaceuticals and cosmetics, have been shown to cause a decline in women's reproductive function. However, whether exposure to parabens during pregnancy also negatively affect the ovarian function of the female offspring in adulthood remains unclear. This study aims to investigate the effects of prenatal propylparaben (PrP) exposure on the ovarian function of adult mice aged 46 weeks, which is equivalent to the age of 40 years in women. Pregnant ICR mice were intraperitoneally injected with human-relevant doses of PrP (i.e., 0, 7.5, 90, and 450 mg/kg/day) during the fetal sex determination period—from embryonic day E7.5 to E13.5. Our results revealed that ovarian aging was accelerated in PrP-exposed mice at 46 weeks, with altered regularity of the estrous cycle, decreased serum estrogen (E2) and progesterone (P4) levels, reduced size of the primordial follicle pool, and increased number of atretic follicles. It was found that prenatal exposure to human-relevant doses of PrP exacerbated ovarian oxidative stress, inflammation, and fibrosis, which promoted follicular atresia by activating the mitochondrial apoptosis pathway. To compensate, the depletion of primordial follicles was also accelerated by activating the PI3K/AKT/mTOR signaling pathway in PrP-exposed mice. Moreover, PrP induced hypermethylation of CpG sites in the promoter region of Cyp11a1 (a 17.16–64.28% increase) partly led to the disrupted steroidogenesis, and the altered methylation levels of imprinted genes H19 and Peg3 may also contribute to the phenotypes observed. These remarkable findings highlight the embryonic origin of ovarian aging and suggest that a reduced use of PrP during pregnancy should be advocated.

Many types of contaminants of emerging concern (CECs), including per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), have been found in leachate of operating municipal landfills. However, there is only limited information on CECs presence in leachate of historic landfills (≥3 decades since closure, often lacking engineered liners or leachate collection systems) at concentrations that may pose a risk to nearby wells and surface water ecosystems. In this study, 48 samples of leachate-impacted groundwater were collected from 20 historic landfills in Ontario, Canada. The CECs measured included artificial sweeteners (ASs), PFAS, organophosphate esters (OPE), pharmaceuticals, bisphenols, sulfamic acid, perchlorate, and substituted phenols. The common presence of the AS saccharin, a known indicator of old landfill leachate, combined with mostly negligible levels of the AS acesulfame, an indicator of modern wastewater, revealed that most samples were strongly influenced by leachate and not cross-contaminated by wastewater (which can contain these same CECs). Several landfills, including ones closed in the 1960s, had total PFAS concentrations similar to those previously measured at modern landfills, with a maximum observed here of 12.7 μg/L. Notably elevated concentrations of several OPE, sulfamic acid, cotinine, and bisphenols A and S were found at many 30-60 year-old landfills. There was little indication of declining concentrations with landfill age, suggesting historic landfills can be long-term sources of CECs to groundwater and that certain CECs may be useful tracers for historic landfill leachate. These findings provide guidance on which CECs may require monitoring at historic landfill sites and wastewater treatment plants receiving their effluent.