Development and Validation of the Coastal Biosensors for Endocrine Disruption (C-BED) Assay

Endocrine Disrupting Compounds (EDCs) from hormone-based medications continually flow into coastal environments from sewer systems. Studies over the past twenty years have demonstrated that these compounds cause reproductive and developmental harm to marine life, and may affect humans through shellfish consumption. Currently, State and Federal monitoring programs do not test for EDCs due to the analytical challenges they present. We propose to develop a biomonitoring tool for two of the most widely detected EDCs using the sentinel species, the blue mussel. Our proposed experiments investigating bioconcentration kinetics, transcriptomic analysis of physiological pathways perturbed by EDCs in male mussels, and the development and testing of the C-BED assay will better enable monitoring agencies to assess the risks to coastal communities from EDC exposure.