Estrogen-like activity of seafood related to environmental chemical contaminants.docVIP

Environmental Health: A Global Access Science Source BioMedCentral Research Open Access Estrogen-like activity of seafood related to environmental chemical contaminants Sonia Garritano1, Barbara Pinto2, Marco Calderisi2, Teresa Cirillo3, Renata Amodio-Cocchieri3 and Daniela Reali*2 Address: 1IARC, 150 Cours Albert-Thomas, 69372 Lyon Cedex 08, France, 2Department of Experimental Pathology, Medical Biotechnology, Infectivology and Epidemiology, University of Pisa, Via San Zeno 37, 56127 Pisa, Italy and 3Department of Food Science, University of Naples Federico II, Via Università 100, 80055 Portici, Italy Email: Sonia Garritano - garritanos@iarc.fr; Barbara Pinto - b.pinto@med.unipi.it; Marco Calderisi - calderisi@chemiometria.it; Teresa Cirillo - tcirillo@unina.it; Renata Amodio-Cocchieri - amodio@unina.it; Daniela Reali* - d.reali@med.unipi.it * Corresponding author Published: 30 March 2006 Received: 28 September 2005 Accepted: 30 March 2006 Environmental Health: A Global Access Science Source 2006, 5:9 doi:10.1186/1476-069X-5- 9 This article is available from: /content/5/1/9 ? 2006 Garritano et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Abstract Background: A wide variety of environmental pollutants occur in surface waters, including estuarine and marine waters. Many of these contaminants are recognised as endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) which can adversely affect the male and female reproductive system by binding the estrogen receptor and exhibiting hormone-like activities. In this study the estrogenic activity of extracts of edible marine organisms for human consumption from the Mediterranean Sea was assayed. Methods: Marine organisms were collected in two different areas of the