Phthalates: Toxicogenomics and inferred human diseases

Phthalates are widely used as plasticizers to soften and increase the flexibility in polyvinyl chloride plastics, but they can leach into the surrounding environment. There is sufficient evidence in rodents that phthalate exposure causes developmental and reproductive toxicity.The curated interactions between 16 phthalates and genes/proteins were obtained from Comparative Toxicogenomics Database (CTD), and a total of 445 interactions between the five most frequently curated phthalates (DEHP/MEHP and DBP/BBP/MBP) and 249 unique genes/proteins were found. The GeneOntology, pathways and networks of these 249 unique genes/proteins were fully analyzed. The pathways and networks of top 34 genes/proteins were found to be very similar to those of the 249 unique genes/proteins. Thus, the top 34 genes/proteins may serve as molecular biomarkers of phthalate toxicity.The top three phthalate toxicity categories were found to be cardiotoxicity, hepatotoxicity and nephrotoxicity, and the top 20 diseases included cardiovascular, liver, urologic, endocrine and genital diseases.