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Detecting estrogens in food and the environment

Nature Biotechnology volume 17, pages 1162–1163 (1999)Cite this article

Endocrine disruptors (EDCs) are a class of either natural or synthetic compounds that are suspected of adversely affecting the health of humans, and possibly entire communities and populations of wildlife. Environmental estrogens are a particularly prevalent and potentially harmful source of EDCs that have been linked to feminization of wildlife such as fish1 and reptiles2, and the increasing incidence of breast and testicular cancer in humans3. From the standpoint of public health and environmental protection, it is essential to monitor the levels of these compounds in food and the environment, in order both to prevent their accumulation and to uncover any harmful effects. In this issue, Garret et al.4 report a rapid, high-throughput, and nonradioactive strategy for detecting such compounds based on their ability to bind to the estrogen receptor.

Estrogens are natural hormones required for normal female secondary sexual maturation, bone maturation and mineral mass, epiphysal fusion, growth spurt at puberty, insulin sensitivity, and lipid homeostasis5. Given their broad role in animal development and physiology, it is not surprising that estrogens in the environment (xenoestrogens) are thought to be harmful. In 1996, public concern over this issue prompted the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA, Germantown, MD) to launch a program to identify chemicals that pose hazards to human and wildlife endocrine systems.

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Figure 1: Signal transduction pathway for estrogens.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. professor and head of the department and Martin Seifert is a Ph.D. student at the department of botany, Technical University of Munich, Freising-Weihenstephan, D-85350, Freising, Germany

    Bertold Hock & Martin Seifert

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  1. Bertold Hock
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  2. Martin Seifert
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Hock, B., Seifert, M. Detecting estrogens in food and the environment. Nat Biotechnol 17, 1162–1163 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1038/70703

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