A novel procedure for predicting chronic toxicities and ecological risks of perfluorinated compounds in aquatic environment

Perfluorinated compounds (PFCs) can pose adverse effect on aquatic species and community structure. However, little is known about how the characteristics of molecules of PFCs affect their chronic toxic potencies to aquatic species, and the species sensitivity distributions (SSDs) and ecological risk assessments of PFCs are hampered by limited available data of chronic toxicity. In the present study, a novel procedure is proposed to obtain the ecological risk of PFCs using existing exposure concentrations of PFCs and SSDs integrated with the chronic toxicity prediction through robust QSAR models. The results showed that the energy of the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (ELUMO) exhibited the strongest correlation with the chronic toxicities of 15 PFCs (R-2 > 0.844, F > 16.206, p < 0.05). SSDs of 15 PFCs on eight species were first constructed, and the SSD fitting parameters were significantly correlated with E-LUMO (R-2 > 0.610, F > 19.471, p < 0.05). The QSAR-SSDs support the evaluation of hazardous criteria of PFCs for which data are lacking. Given environmental exposure distributions (EEDs) of the national presence of PFCs in aquatic systems in China, the QSAR-SSDs models allow the development of the ecological risk assessment for PFCs. This way, it was concluded that negligible environmental risk (defined as 5% of the species being potentially exposed to concentrations able to cause effects in < 5% of the case) could be expected from exposure to PFCs in surface waters in China. This method may be helpful for providing an evidence-based approach to guide the risk management for PFCs in aquatic environment.

Automated summary

A novel method using QSAR models and species sensitivity distributions (SSDs) is proposed to assess the ecological risk of PFCs. The study found correlations between the molecular characteristics of PFCs, chronic toxicities, and species sensitivity. This approach can be used to evaluate the ecological risk of PFCs in aquatic systems in China, and the results suggest that the potential risk to aquatic species from exposure to PFCs is negligible.