Transthyretin-binding activity of complex mixtures representing the composition of thyroid-hormone disrupting contaminants in house dust and human serum

Timo Hamers*, Andreas Kortenkamp, Martin Scholze, Douwe Molenaar, Peter H. Cenijn, Jana M. Weiss

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to JournalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

BACKGROUND: House dust contains many organic contaminants that can compete with the thyroid hormone (TH) thyroxine (T4) for binding to trans-thyretin (TTR). How these contaminants work together at levels found in humans and how displacement from TTR in vitro relates to in vivo T4-TTR binding is unknown. OBJECTIVES: Our aims were to determine the TTR-binding potency for contaminant mixtures as found in house dust, maternal serum, and infant se-rum; to study whether the TTR-binding potency of the mixtures follows the principle of concentration addition; and to extrapolate the in vitro TTR-binding potency to in vivo inhibition levels of T4-TTR binding in maternal and infant serum. METHODS: Twenty-five contaminants were tested for their in vitro capacity to compete for TTR-binding with a fluorescent FITC-T4 probe. Three mixtures were reconstituted proportionally to median concentrations for these chemicals in house dust, maternal serum, or infant serum from Nordic countries. Measured concentration–response curves were compared with concentration–response curves predicted by concentration addition. For each reconstituted serum mixture, its inhibitor–TTR dissociation constant (Ki) was used to estimate inhibition levels of T4-TTR binding in human blood. RESULTS: The TTR-binding potency of the mixtures was well predicted by concentration addition. The ∼ 20% inhibition in FITC-T4 binding observed for the mixtures reflecting median concentrations in maternal and infant serum was extrapolated to 1.3% inhibition of T4-TTR binding in maternal and 1.5% in infant blood. For nontested mixtures reflecting high-end serum concentrations, these estimates were 6.2% and 4.9%, respectively. DISCUSSION: The relatively low estimated inhibition levels at median exposure levels may explain why no relationship between exposure to TTR-binding compounds and circulating T4 levels in humans has been reported, so far. We hypothesize, however, that 1.3% inhibition of T4-TTR binding may ultimately be decisive for reaching a status of maternal hypothyroidism or hypothyroxinemia associated with impaired neurodevelopment in children.

Original languageEnglish
Article number017015
Pages (from-to)1-15
Number of pages15
JournalEnvironmental Health Perspectives
Volume128
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 31 Jan 2020

Funding

The MiSSE project (https://www.aces.su.se/misse/) was funded by the Swedish Research Council FORMAS (project 210-2012-131). The authors acknowledge Å. Bergman (Stockholm University) for the initial coordination of the MiSSE project, M. Lamoree (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam), and J. Kamstra (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, currently Utrecht University) for adopting and optimizing the FITC-T4 TTR-binding assay in our laboratory, and J. Norrgran Engdahl (Stockholm University) for supporting the compilation of the mixtures.

FundersFunder number
Universiteit Utrecht
Svenska Forskningsrådet Formas210-2012-131
Stockholms Universitet

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