title: Hair analysis for the biomonitoring of pesticide exposure: comparison with blood and urine in a rat model.
abstract: Urine and plasma have been used to date for the biomonitoring of exposure to pollutants and are still the preferred fluids for this purpose; however, these fluids mainly provide information on the short term and may present a high level of variability regarding pesticide concentrations, especially for nonpersistent compounds. Hair analysis may provide information about chronic exposure that is averaged over several months; therefore, this method has been proposed as an alternative to solely relying on these fluids. Although the possibility of detecting pesticides in hair has been demonstrated over the past few years, the unknown linkage between exposure and pesticides concentration in hair has limited the recognition of this matrix as a relevant tool for assessing human exposure. Based on a rat model in which there was controlled exposure to a mixture of pesticides composed of lindane, β-hexachlorocyclohexane, β-endosulfan, p,p'-DDT, p,p'-DDE, dieldrin, pentachlorophenol, diazinon, chlorpyrifos, cyhalothrin, permethrin, cypermethrin, propiconazole, fipronil, oxadiazon, diflufenican, trifluralin, carbofuran, and propoxur, the current work demonstrates the association between exposure intensity and resulting pesticide concentration in hair. We also compared the results obtained from a hair analysis to urine and plasma collected from the same rats. Hair, blood, and urine were collected from rats submitted to 90-day exposure by gavage to the aforementioned mixture of common pesticides at different levels. We observed a linear relationship between exposure intensity and the concentration of pesticides in the rats' hair (RPearson0.453-0.978, p < 0.01). A comparison with results from urine and plasma samples demonstrated the relevance of hair analysis and, for many chemicals, its superiority over using fluids for differentiating animals from different groups and for re-attributing animals to their correct groups of exposure based on pesticide concentrations in the matrix. Therefore, this study strongly supports hair analysis as a reliable tool to be used during epidemiological studies to investigate exposure-associated adverse health effects.
authors.affiliation: Human Biomonitoring Research Unit, Department of Population Health, Luxembourg Institute of Health, 29 Rue Henri Koch, 4354, Esch-sur Alzette, Luxembourg. brice.appenzeller@lih.lu.
authors.forename: Brice M R
authors.initials: BMR
authors.lastname: Appenzeller
authors.affiliation: Human Biomonitoring Research Unit, Department of Population Health, Luxembourg Institute of Health, 29 Rue Henri Koch, 4354, Esch-sur Alzette, Luxembourg.
authors.forename: Emilie M
authors.initials: EM
authors.lastname: Hardy
authors.affiliation: Human Biomonitoring Research Unit, Department of Population Health, Luxembourg Institute of Health, 29 Rue Henri Koch, 4354, Esch-sur Alzette, Luxembourg.
authors.forename: Nathalie
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Grova
authors.affiliation: Human Biomonitoring Research Unit, Department of Population Health, Luxembourg Institute of Health, 29 Rue Henri Koch, 4354, Esch-sur Alzette, Luxembourg.
authors.forename: Caroline
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Chata
authors.affiliation: Human Biomonitoring Research Unit, Department of Population Health, Luxembourg Institute of Health, 29 Rue Henri Koch, 4354, Esch-sur Alzette, Luxembourg.|Competence Center in Methodology and Statistics, Luxembourg Institute of Health, 29 Rue Henri Koch, 4354, Esch-sur Alzette, Luxembourg.
authors.forename: François
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Faÿs
authors.affiliation: French Ministry of Agriculture, Agrifood, and Forestry, Paris, France.
authors.forename: Olivier
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Briand
authors.affiliation: Unit Research Animal and Functionality of Animal Products (URAFPA), French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA) UC340, University of Lorraine, Nancy, France.
authors.forename: Henri
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Schroeder
authors.affiliation: Human Biomonitoring Research Unit, Department of Population Health, Luxembourg Institute of Health, 29 Rue Henri Koch, 4354, Esch-sur Alzette, Luxembourg.
authors.forename: Radu-Corneliu
authors.initials: RC
authors.lastname: Duca
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D004781:Environmental Exposure / Q000032:analysis; D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000379:methods*; D004785:Environmental Pollutants / Q000032:analysis* / Q000493:pharmacokinetics; D005260:Female; D006197:Hair / Q000737:chemistry*; D010575:Pesticides / Q000032:analysis* / Q000493:pharmacokinetics; D051381:Rats; D020318:Rats, Long-Evans; D015203:Reproducibility of Results
chemical_list: D004785:Environmental Pollutants; D010575:Pesticides
keywords: Biomonitoring; Exposure; Hair analysis; Pesticide; Plasma; Urine