title: Exposure of Hong Kong residents to PBDEs and their structural analogues through market fish consumption.
abstract: High concentrations of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) and their structural analogues (such as methoxylated (MeO) and hydroxylated (OH) PBDEs) had been observed in environmental samples and human tissues. This study evaluated the occurrence, potential source and human exposure of these organobrominated compounds via market fish consumption in Hong Kong. The contamination of 22 PBDEs, 7 MeO-BDEs, 15 OH-BDEs and 3 bromophenols (BRPs) were analyzed in 20 fish species (279 samples). The estimated daily intakes of PBDEs, MeO-BDEs, OH-BDEs and BRPs via fish consumption ranged from 4.4 to 14, 0.50 to 4.3, 0.02 to 0.43 and 0 to 0.21 ng/kg day for Hong Kong residents, respectively, based on 50(th) and 95(th) centile concentrations. BDE-47 and 99 were found to be the major PBDE congeners while 2'-MeO-BDE-68, 6-MeO-BDE-47 and 3-MeO-BDE-47 were the dominant MeO-BDEs. Concentrations of OH-BDEs and BRPs were 10-100-fold less than those of PBDEs, with small frequencies of detection (max 36.7%). Dietary intake of PBDEs via fish consumption by Hong Kong residents was greater than many developed countries, such as the USA, UK, Japan and Spain. To our knowledge, this is the first report to estimate the dietary intake of MeO/OH-BDEs and BRPs via fish consumption. Our results indicated that the toxicity potential of these compounds should not be neglected.
authors.affiliation: Croucher Institute for Environmental Sciences, and Department of Biology, Hong Kong Baptist University, Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong, PR China.
authors.forename: Hong-Sheng
authors.initials: HS
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Jun
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Du
authors.forename: Ka-Lok
authors.initials: KL
authors.lastname: Ho
authors.forename: Ho-man
authors.initials: HM
authors.lastname: Leung
authors.forename: Michael Hon-Wah
authors.initials: MH
authors.lastname: Lam
authors.forename: John P
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Giesy
authors.forename: Chris Kong-Chu
authors.initials: CK
authors.lastname: Wong
authors.forename: Ming-Hung
authors.initials: MH
authors.lastname: Wong
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D004781:Environmental Exposure; D005399:Fishes; D055768:Halogenated Diphenyl Ethers / Q000737:chemistry / Q000633:toxicity*; D006723:Hong Kong; D006801:Humans
chemical_list: D055768:Halogenated Diphenyl Ethers; C086401:pentabromodiphenyl ether