Bioaccumulation and human health risk assessment of DDT and its metabolites (DDTs) in yellowfin tuna (Thunnus albacares) and their prey from the South China Sea

Run-Xia Sun; Yue Sun; Xian-De Xie; Bing-Zhong Yang; Lin-Ying Cao; Shuang Luo; Yang-Yang Wang; Bi-Xian Mai

doi:10.1016/j.marpolbul.2020.111396

Bioaccumulation and human health risk assessment of DDT and its metabolites (DDTs) in yellowfin tuna (Thunnus albacares) and their prey from the South China Sea

Mar Pollut Bull. 2020 Sep:158:111396. doi: 10.1016/j.marpolbul.2020.111396. Epub 2020 Jun 23.

Authors

Run-Xia Sun¹, Yue Sun², Xian-De Xie³, Bing-Zhong Yang⁴, Lin-Ying Cao⁵, Shuang Luo⁵, Yang-Yang Wang⁶, Bi-Xian Mai⁷

Affiliations

¹ School of Marine Sciences, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing 210044, China.
² School of Biomedical Engineering, Shenzhen University Health Science Center, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen 518060, China.
³ College of Resources and Environment, Hunan Agricultural University, Changsha 410128, China. Electronic address: xd_xie@hunau.edu.cn.
⁴ South China Sea Fisheries Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences, Guangzhou 510300, China; Key Laboratory of Open-Sea Fishery Development, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Guangzhou 510300, China.
⁵ College of Resources and Environment, Hunan Agricultural University, Changsha 410128, China.
⁶ College of Environment and Planning, Henan University, Kaifeng 475004, China.
⁷ State Key Laboratory of Organic Geochemistry, Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou 510640, China.

PMID: 32753181
DOI: 10.1016/j.marpolbul.2020.111396

Abstract

DDTs were detected in yellowfin tuna (Thunnus albacares, 92.1-221.8 ng‧g^-1 lipid weight) and their prey (54.9-93.5 ng‧g^-1 lipid weight) from the South China Sea (SCS). DDT levels reported in this study were lower than those of the previous studies indicated the recent mitigation of DDT contamination in the SCS. Higher DDT levels were observed in fat abdominal muscle than lean dorsal muscle in adult yellowfin tuna. Meanwhile, DDT levels in adult yellowfin tuna were higher than the young ones. The composition profiles of DDT and its metabolites suggested DDTs in fish in the SCS were mainly derived from the historical use of technical DDTs. DDTs were biomagnified through food chains with the trophic magnification factor of 2.5. Risk assessment results indicated that dietary exposure to DDTs through lifetime fish consumption from the SCS would pose little cancer and noncarcinogenic risk to coastal residents.

Keywords: Biomagnification; DDTs; Dietary exposure; South China Sea; Yellowfin tuna.

MeSH terms

Animals
Bioaccumulation
China
DDT / analysis*
Humans
Risk Assessment
Tuna*

Substances

DDT