Polymer-based biosensor for estrogenic endocrine-disrupting chemicals in water

ABSTRACT

The impact of estrogenic endocrine-disrupting chemicals (eEDCs) exposure is unpredictable. The presence of estrogenic eEDCs due to incomplete removal from wastewater treatment plants has caused great concern to the public, when it comes to water re-use. Therefore, it is important to perform the preliminary assessment on eEDCs detection for the accurate analysis of effluent from wastewater treatment plants to identify the presence of these compounds in the environment. Although there are various eEDCs detection methods that have been established, there are limitations such as expensive instrumentation, and elusive and inaccessible outside of the laboratory remain a major hindrance to move forward. Therefore, these analytical methods for eEDCs detection would reduce risk, maximise benefits and offer the potential to other alternative methods as a transition from traditional analytical assessment to more accurate and practical systems. With the advancement of material design, numerous research efforts have been contrived for developing new sensor-based polymeric material to fulfil this prerequisite requirement. Therefore, this paper presents a review of recent trends in the analysis of eEDCs in environmental matrices focusing on four classes of environmentally important eEDCs; namely; estrone (E1), 17β-estradiol (E2), estriol (E3) and 17α- estradiol (EE2). We also discuss an alternative methods used to detect eEDCs that focus on the use of aptamer for the detection of estrogenic eEDCs.

KEYWORDS:

• Estrogenic EDCs
• polymeric materials
• aptamer
• biosensor

Highlights

1. Impact of estrogenic endocrine-disrupting chemicals (eEDCs) that altering the endocrine system in both human and animals.

2. The main eEDCs in sewage/waste water treatment plants (WWTPs).

3. An overview of polymeric material-based sensor approach in monitoring estrogenic endocrine-disrupting chemicals (eEDCs) instead of utilizing expensive analysis instrumentation.

4. An aptamer integrated with polymeric material in the development of biosensor for estrogenic endocrine-disrupting chemicals (eEDCs) detection.

Acknowledgments

Thank you to Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) for funding this project through Research University Grants, MI-2019-010 and GUP-2018-025.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by University Kebangsaan Malaysia through research grant  modal insan [MI-2019-010] and [GUP-2018-025].