An In Silico and In Vitro Study for Investigating Estrogenic Endocrine Effects of Emerging Persistent Pollutants Using Primary Hepatocytes from Grey Mullet (Mugil cephalus)

There is growing concern about the environmentally relevant concentrations of new emerging persistent organic pollutants, such as perfluorinated compounds and pharmaceuticals, which are found to bioaccumulate in aquatic organisms at suspected cause reproductive toxicity due activation estrogen receptor (ER) α β subtypes. Here, we use a combined silico vitro approach evaluate impact perfluorononanoic acid (PFNA) Enalapril (ENA) on grey mullet (Mugil cephalus) hepatic signaling pathway. ENA had weak agonist activity ERα while PFNA showed moderate high binding both ERs. According these effects, hepatocytes incubation for 48 h resulted concentration-dependent upregulation ER vitellogenin gene expression profiles, whereas only small increase was observed mRNA levels highest concentration. These data suggest structure–activity relationship between ERs pollutants.