Transcriptomic-Based Effects Monitoring for Endocrine Active Chemicals—Assessing Relative Contribution of Treated Wastewater to Downstream Pollution

Many biomonitoring tools/approaches have been proposed to assess presence of endocrine active chemicals (EACs) and their biological effects in the field. Although these tools have provided valuable information, they are often limited by their specificity for certain groups of EACs and they may not account for interactions between EACs. This study aims to evaluate utility of transcriptomic and metabolomic technologies for effects monitoring in the field, and to advance integration of omic and environmental chemistry data sets. The objective was to utilize transcriptomic biomonitoring to determine the relative contribution of wastewater treatment plant effluents to biological effects observed in fish exposed to ambient waters receiving the effluents. Adult male fathead minnow were exposed to treated wastewater effluent or stream water up or downstream the plant in three different watersheds for 4 days. After exposure, the liver of 5-7 fish per treatment per site (i.e 19-21 fish from each watershed) were analyzed by microarrays. The transcriptomic profiles were compared to control fish exposed to Lake Superior filtered water.