title: Methodologies to examine the importance of host factors in bioavailability of metals.
abstract: Bioavailability provides a link between intrinsic toxicity and the ability to produce that toxic effect in an organism. Biomonitoring tools are essential to assess the health of ecosystems and their component parts, including humans. While field and laboratory data are available, two critical issues to our understanding of bioavailability are often missing: 1) knowing the relationship between dose and tissue concentrations, and 2) species extrapolations. Understanding of high to low dose extrapolation is also critical. Methods to understand the importance of host factors in bioavailability of metals must assess gender, age, nutritional status, individual variability, temporal changes, and critical habitat effects. Methods to examine these variables include correlational, observational, experimental, epidemiological, and modeling studies, or a combination of these. Data gaps include developing more representative studies of human and animal populations, better analytical tools for rapid determination of metal content in the field, improved analytical characterization of metal bioavailability, and concurrent studies of different metals.
authors.affiliation: Nelson Biological Laboratories, Division of Life Sciences, Rutgers University, 604 Allison Road, Piscataway, NJ 08854-8082, USA. burger@biology.rutgers.edu
authors.forename: Joanna
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Burger
authors.forename: Fernando
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Diaz-Barriga
authors.forename: Erminio
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Marafante
authors.forename: Joel
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Pounds
authors.forename: Mark
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Robson
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001682:Biological Availability; D003625:Data Collection; D017753:Ecosystem; D004781:Environmental Exposure; D004784:Environmental Monitoring; D016021:Epidemiologic Studies; D005544:Forecasting; D006801:Humans; D019216:Metals, Heavy / Q000493:pharmacokinetics* / Q000633:toxicity; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D018570:Risk Assessment
chemical_list: D019216:Metals, Heavy