Distribution, Bioaccumulation, and Risks of Pharmaceutical Metabolites and Their Parents: A Case Study in an Yunliang River, Nanjing City

Zhenhua Yan (), Yixin Zhou, Yan Zhang and Xiadong Zhang
Additional contact information
Zhenhua Yan: Key Laboratory of Integrated Regulation and Resource Development on Shallow Lakes of Ministry of Education, Hohai University, Nanjing 210098, China
Yixin Zhou: Key Laboratory of Integrated Regulation and Resource Development on Shallow Lakes of Ministry of Education, Hohai University, Nanjing 210098, China
Yan Zhang: Key Laboratory of Integrated Regulation and Resource Development on Shallow Lakes of Ministry of Education, Hohai University, Nanjing 210098, China
Xiadong Zhang: Key Laboratory of Integrated Regulation and Resource Development on Shallow Lakes of Ministry of Education, Hohai University, Nanjing 210098, China

IJERPH, 2023, vol. 20, issue 4, 1-18

Abstract: The occurrence, bioaccumulation, and risks of 11 pairs of pharmaceutical metabolites and their respective parents were investigated in the water, sediment, and fish of an urban river in Nanjing city, China. The results showed that most of the target metabolites and their parents were detected in all water samples, with concentrations ranging from 0.1 ng/L to 72.9 ng/L. In some cases, the concentrations of metabolites in water were significantly higher than their parents, with fold changes reaching up 4.1 in the wet season and 6.6 in the dry season, while in sediment and fish, a lower concentration was observed in most cases. A lowered concentration of detected pharmaceuticals was observed in the dry season when compared to the wet season due to the seasonal variation in pharmaceutical consumption and overflow effluent. The bioaccumulation of pharmaceuticals in different fish tissues were detected with a descending order of overall concentration as gill > brain > muscle > gonad > intestine > liver > blood. In addition, the concentrations of both metabolites and their parents also decreased along the river in two seasons. However, the concentration rates of metabolites and their parents were significantly altered along the river in both water and sediment. The relatively high concentration proportions of the detected pharmaceuticals in water suggested that pharmaceuticals were more likely to apportion in water than in sediment, especially for the metabolites. Meanwhile, the rates of the metabolite/parent pairs between fish and water/sediment were generally lower, indicating the higher excretion capacity of metabolites from fish than their parents. Most of the detected pharmaceuticals had no impact on aquatic organisms. However, the presence of ibuprofen posed a medium risk to fish. Compared to the parents, metabolites showed a relatively low risk value but a high contribution to the total risk. It highlights that metabolites in the aquatic environments cannot be ignored.

Keywords: pharmaceutical; metabolite; accumulation; risk assessment; fish (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/4/2967/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/4/2967/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:20:y:2023:i:4:p:2967-:d:1061656

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().