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Distribution of polybrominated diphenyl ethers in Japanese autopsy tissue and body fluid samples

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Abstract

Brominated flame retardants are components of many plastics and are used in products such as cars, textiles, televisions, and personal computers. Human exposure to polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE) flame retardants has increased exponentially during the last three decades. Our objective was to measure the body burden and distribution of PBDEs and to determine the concentrations of the predominant PBDE congeners in samples of liver, bile, adipose tissue, and blood obtained from Japanese autopsy cases. Tissues and body fluids obtained from 20 autopsy cases were analyzed. The levels of 25 PBDE congeners, ranging from tri- to hexa-BDEs, were assessed. The geometric means of the sum of the concentrations of PBDE congeners having detection frequencies >50 % (ΣPBDE) in the blood, liver, bile, and adipose tissue were 2.4, 2.6, 1.4, and 4.3 ng/g lipid, respectively. The most abundant congeners were BDE-47 and BDE-153, followed by BDE-100, BDE-99, and BDE-28+33. These concentrations of PBDE congeners were similar to other reports of human exposure in Japan but were notably lower than concentrations than those reported in the USA. Significant positive correlations were observed between the concentrations of predominant congeners and ΣPBDE among the samples analyzed. The ΣPBDE concentration was highest in the adipose tissue, but PBDEs were distributed widely among the tissues and body fluids analyzed. The PBDE levels observed in the present study are similar to those reported in previous studies in Japan and significantly lower than those reported in the USA.

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Acknowledgments

We are deeply indebted to Dr. K Akutsu, Osaka Prefectural Institute of Public Health, for his helpful advice during the study.

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Correspondence to Tetsuya Hirai.

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Responsible editor: Ake Bergman

Supplemental Information

Table S1 lists the PBDE congeners monitored in this study, and Table S2 shows the results of Spearman’s rank correlation analyses applied to assess the relationship between the ΣPBDE and predominant congener concentrations among the different samples analyzed. Figure S1 illustrates the distribution of the concentrations of dominant PBDE congeners.

Table S1

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Table S2

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Fig. S1

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Hirai, T., Fujimine, Y., Watanabe, S. et al. Distribution of polybrominated diphenyl ethers in Japanese autopsy tissue and body fluid samples. Environ Sci Pollut Res 19, 3538–3546 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-012-0915-z

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