Evaluation of small dairy ruminant exposure to polycylic aromatic hydrocarbons: A biomarker approach

Despite its interest, little is known about the potential of 1-hydroxypyrene to be used as biomarker of exposure of dairy ruminants (goat, sheep and cow) to pyrene or other polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and, to date, no clear approach has been proposed to evaluate and use this biomarking potential for evaluating exposure to pyrene and other polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons also prone to contaminate the vegetal cover ingested by these dairy ruminants. In the present study, three Alpin goats were daily submitted to two different levels (0.04 and 0.28 mg/day) of pyrene oral ingestion, together with phenanthrene and benzo(a)pyrene, during 1 week each. Extraction and HPLC-fluorimetry analysis results on 1-hydroxypyrene in milk and urine as well as on 1, 2, 3 and 4-OH-phenanthrene and 3-OH benzo(a)pyrene in urine were fruitfully combined with few recently published results on 1-hydroxypyrene excretion achieved in a former and similar experiment performed on a set of four goats with doses 1, 7 and 49 mg/day/goat. Statistical analysis demonstrated the biomarking potential of 1-hydroxypyrene to be used for evaluation of oral exposure to pyrene under low and large levels of exposure and transfer (linear) equations were proposed. Finally, a literature based approach, combined with the achieved experimental transfer rates, was proposed for evaluating the amounts of 12 additional polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons into the fodder, thus extending the potential of 1-hydroxypyrene in urine and/or milk to be used as a biomarker of oral exposure to PAHs. Keeping in mind that milk is much easier to sample as compared to urine, such approach may be used as a first step for evaluation of oral exposure of goat and likely other dairy ruminants to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons prior to any exhaustive, time and cost consuming analytical investigation.