Superfund Research Program
Assessing the Adverse Effects of Environmental Hazards on Reproductive Health
Project Leader: Bill L. Lasley
Grant Number: P42ES004699
Funding Period: 1995-2015
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Final Progress Reports
The past year has seen the adapting of all of the researchers microtiter plate assays to an automated platform (Bayer’s ACS-180). This has facilitated the application of the biomarker assays to several population-based studies of women with resulting data that demonstrate adverse effects of environmental hazards to women’s reproductive health and suggest mechanism(s) of toxic action. In one study, the adverse effects of cigarette smoking is shown to decrease ovarian progesterone production and increase follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) secretion in the luteal-follicular transition. The researchers hypothesize that it is this increase in FSH that results in a shortening of the subsequent follicular phase and reduced female fertility and provides one of the few working hypothesis regarding the potential mechanism of toxic action of the components in cigarette smoke. In another study the scientists show that increased levels of dietary chlorinated hydrocarbons are associated with increased abnormal menstrual cycles in women who eat contaminated fish from the San Francisco Bay Delta. These data may add additional evidence of an endocrine disruption in humans subsequent to bioaccumulation of toxicants in fish. In addition, a method for detecting and quantifying bioactive androgens in biological samples has been developed and applied. A chemical activated luminescence expression (CALUX) assay permits the combined measure of all biologically active androgens in human serum thus a direct measure of “androgenicity. This assay can be used to detect and quantify environmental androgens and androgen disruptors. Project 6 has also accepted a large service component for the analysis of the urine samples collected by the on-going Epidemiology Project (Superfund Project 9) that is reported separately by Dr. Gold.