The suitability of concentration addition for predicting the effects of multi-component mixtures of up to 17 anti-androgens with varied structural features in an in vitro AR antagonist assay

The risks associated with human exposures to chemicals capable of antagonising the effects of endogenous androgens have attracted considerable recent interest. Exposure is typically to large numbers of chemicals with androgen receptor (AR) antagonist activity, yet there is limited evidence of the combined effects of multi-component mixtures of these chemicals. A few in vitro studies with mixtures of up to six AR antagonists suggest that the concept of concentration addition (CA) provides good approximations of experimentally observed mixture effects, but studies with larger numbers of anti-androgens, and with more varied structural features, are missing. Here we show that the mixture effects of up to 17 AR antagonists, comprising compounds as diverse as UV-filter substances, parabens, perfluorinated compounds, bisphenol-A, benzo(α)pyrene, synthetic musks, antioxidants and polybrominated biphenyls, can be predicted well on the basis of the anti-androgenicity of the single components using the concept of CA. We tested these mixtures in an in vitro AR-dependent luciferase reporter gene assay, based on MDA-kb2 cells. The effects of further mixtures, composed of four and six anti-androgens, could be predicted accurately by CA. However, there was a shortfall from expected additivity with a ten-component mixture at two different mixture ratios, but attempts to attribute these deviations to differential expression of hormone-metabolising CYP isoforms did not produce conclusive results. CA provides good approximations of in vitro mixture effects of anti-androgens with varying structural features.

► Humans are exposed to a large number of androgen receptor antagonists.
► There is limited evidence of the combined effects of anti-androgenic chemicals.
► We modelled the predictability of combined effects of up to 17 anti-androgens.
► We tested the mixture predictions in an in vitro reporter gene assay.
► Dose addition provides good approximations of mixture effects of anti-androgens.