Industrialized waterways frequently contain nearshore hotspots of legacy polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) contamination, with uncertain contribution to aquatic food web contamination. We evaluated the utility of estuarine forage fish as biosentinel indicators of local PCB contamination across multiple nearshore sites in San Francisco Bay. Topsmelt (Atherinops affinis) or Mississippi silverside (M...

From June to August 2000, food samples were randomly acquired in seven cities in Catalonia, Spain. Polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) concentrations were determined for 108 samples of vegetables, fruits, pulses, cereals, fish and shellfish, meats and meat products, eggs, milk and dairy products, and oils and fats. Levels of 11 PCB congeners (IUPAC 28, 52, 77, 101, 105, 118, 126, 138, 153, 169, and ...

The State of Michigan has a long history of research into human exposure to environmental contaminants through consumption of recreationally caught fish. A large cohort of Lake Michigan residents who eat fish (fish-eaters) and those who do not eat fish (nonfish-eaters) established in 1980 served as the basis for the congener-specific polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) exposure evaluation reported h...

The Ah receptor (AhR) is a ligand transcription factor mediating toxic effects of chemicals such as dioxins. The 2,3,7,8 tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD) and the coplanar polychlorinated biphenyl 126 (PCB 126) are member of the polyhalogenated aromatic hydrocarbons family exerting a variety of toxic effects in a tissue-specific and species-specific manner including thyroid function. In the pr...

Both Aroclor mixtures and individual non-coplanar polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) congeners reduce dopamine (DA) concentrations in cells in culture and in the brains of developing and adult laboratory animals. These reductions may involve inhibition of the dopamine transporter (DAT) and the vesicular monoamine transporter (VMAT) responsible, respectively, for the uptake of extracellular DA and t...

Emerging evidence indicates that polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are involved in the development of diabetes mellitus in the obese. The purpose of this study was to determine mechanisms by which PCB 153 (2,2´,4,4´,5,5´-hexachloro-biphenyl) could influence diet-induced obesity and insulin resistance during adipogenesis. Lineage of h-ADMSCs was differentiated either as control (differentiation m...

Currently, there is no nationally representative human milk biomonitoring program in the United States (U.S.) and no studies have reported non-persistent pesticides in the milk of U.S. women. In this pilot study we developed a multiresidue laboratory method to measure non-persistent and persistent pesticides and polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) congeners in human milk samples from women residing ...

Previous studies from our laboratory have shown that ethylene, vinyl fluoride monomer (VFM), vinyl chloride monomer (VCM), and vinyl bromide monomer (VBM) are all acutely hepatotoxic in rats pretreated with polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB). The time course of hepatic injury development after exposure and several parameters, environmental and chemical, affecting this toxicity were evaluated in the...

Four Rhodococcus strains that can degrade PCB/biphenyl were isolated under various conditions. We cloned and analyzed seven bphC gene clusters and found that the bphC8 gene cluster is essential for PCB/biphenyl degradation in R. rhodochrous K37. The product of the bphC8 gene was more homologous to the meta-cleavage enzyme involved in phenanthrene metabolism rather than to those encoded by well-...