Author(s)

Jingxian Wang^1,2, Bernhard Henkelmann², Toine F. H. Bovee³, Gerd Pfister², Liang Zhang⁴, Karl-Werner Schramm²

¹State Key Laboratory of Freshwater Ecology and Biotechnology, Institute of Hydrobiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, China.
²Helmholtz Zentrum München-German Research Center for Environmental Health (GmbH), Molecular EXposomics (MEX), Munich, Germany.
³Department of Toxicology & Bioassays, RIKILT, Institute of Food Safety, Wageningen, The Netherlands.
⁴School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Liaoning Technical University, Fuxin, China.

The evaluation of estrogenic activities and aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) agonists in water from Three Gorges Reservoir (TGR) China was conducted by in vitro bioassays combined with SPMD-based virtual organisms (VO). VOs were deployed at seven sites in the Three Gorges Reservoir (TGR), China for two periods in 2009. The estrogenic activity was assessed using a rapid yeast estrogen bioassay, based on the expression of a green fluorescent reporter protein (yEGFP). The AhR activity was detected employing rat hepatoma cell line (H4IIE). The results indicate that AhR agonists distributed widely in water of TGR and almost homogenously distributed in most area of TGR. Weak antiestrogenic activities were also found homogenously distributed in water of TGR. Further studies are needed to determine the identities of these estrogenic compounds and AhR agonists and their potential adverse effects on wild biota in TGR.

ER Activity, EROD Activity, Three Gorges Reservoir, Virtual Organism, Semipermeable Membrane Device

Wang, J. , Henkelmann, B. , Bovee, T. , Pfister, G. , Zhang, L. and Schramm, K. (2016) Evaluation of Estrogenic Receptor (ER) and Aryl Hydrocarbon Receptor (AhR) Agonists in Three Gorges Reservoir, China Using SPMD-Based Virtual Organisms. Journal of Environmental Protection, 7, 323-330. doi: 10.4236/jep.2016.73028.