Antimicrobials are ubiquitous in the environment and can bioaccumulate in fish. In the present study, we determined the half-maximal inhibitory concentrations (IC50) of 7 environmentally abundant antimicrobials (ciprofloxacin, clarithromycin, clotrimazole, erythromycin, ketoconazole, miconazole, and sulfamethoxazole) on the cytochrome P450 (CYP) system in rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) liver microsomes, using 7-ethoxyresorufin O-deethylation (EROD, CYP1A) and 7-benzyloxy-4-trifluoromethylcoumarin O-debenzylation (BFCOD, CYP3A) as model reactions. Apart from ciprofloxacin and sulfamethoxazole, all antimicrobials inhibited either EROD or BFCOD activities or both at concentrations <500 µM. Erythromycin was the only selective and time-dependent inhibitor of BFCOD. Compared with environmental concentrations, the IC50s of individual compounds were generally high (greater than milligrams per liter); but as mixtures, the antimicrobials resulted in strong, indicatively synergistic inhibitions of both EROD and BFCOD at submicromolar (~micrograms per liter) mixture concentrations. The cumulative inhibition of the BFCOD activity was detectable even at picomolar (~nanograms per liter) mixture concentrations and potentiated over time, likely because of the strong inhibition of CYP3A by ketoconazole (IC50 = 1.7 ± 0.3 µM) and clotrimazole (IC50 = 1.2 ± 0.2 µM). The results suggest that if taken up by fish, the mixtures of these antimicrobials may result in broad CYP inactivation and increase the bioaccumulation risk of any other xenobiotic normally cleared by the hepatic CYPs even at biologically relevant concentrations. Environ Toxicol Chem 2022;41:663-676. © 2021 The Authors. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of SETAC.
Keywords: Bioaccumulation; Cytochrome P450; Environmental risk assessment; Mixtures; Pharmaceuticals; Xenobiotic metabolism.
© 2021 The Authors. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of SETAC.