Steroid hormones in biological and environmental samples: Extraction and determination techniques

Abstract

Residues of hormones have become a cause for concern because they can affect the biological activity of non-target organisms. These compounds are a potential risk for wildlife and humans through the consumption of contaminated food or water. These exogenous substances that interfere with the endocrine system and disrupt the physiologic function of hormones are called endocrine-disruptor compounds (EDCs). The most potent active EDCs present in the environment belong to the chemical class of steroids, which are formed naturally by humans and wildlife or produced synthetically. It has been shown that, at low concentrations, steroid hormones produce alterations in the endocrine system leading to growth, developmental, or reproductive alterations in exposed animals. These changes may be expressed later in the Iife cycle or even in future generations. Thus, it is important to determine the fate and distribution of steroids and steroid conjugates in the environment since they are potential sources of active estrogens as results of dissociation in sewage treatment plants or the input of treated wastewater directly into surface waters. Therefore, the interest for the sensitive determination of steroids in biological and environmental samples has increased in recent years.The need to determine low concentrations of these substances, as well as matrix complexity, requires to develop analytical methods with high sensitivity, selectivity and resolution that they have to be applied to soil, sediment, water and other environmental samples. Elaborate sample preparation involving analyte isolation and enrichment is generally necessary before the final analysis, which is usually performed using gas chromatography (GC) or highperformance liquid chromatography (HPLC). In this chapter an overall review of the more recently reported analytical chemistry methods for identifying and quantifying steroids hormones in biological and environmental samples is presented.