Analytical and Toxicity Characterization of Halo-hydroxyl-benzoquinones as Stable Halobenzoquinone Disinfection Byproducts in Treated Water

Citations Over TimeTop 10% of 2014 papers

Abstract

Exposure to chlorination disinfection byproducts (DBPs) is potentially associated with an increased risk of bladder cancer. Four halobenzoquinones (HBQs) have been detected in treated drinking water and have shown potency in producing reactive oxygen species and inducing damage to cellular DNA and proteins. These HBQs are unstable in drinking water. The fate and behavior of these HBQs in drinking water distribution systems is unclear. Here we report the high-resolution mass spectrometry identification of the transformation products of HBQs as halo-hydroxyl-benzoquinones (OH-HBQs) in water under realistic conditions. To further examine the kinetics of transformation, we developed a solid-phase extraction with ultrahigh-performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (SPE-UHPLC-MS/MS) method to determine both the HBQs and OH-HBQs. The method provides reproducible retention times (SD < 0.05 min), limits of detection (LODs) at subnanogram per liter levels, and recoveries of 68%-96%. Using this method, we confirmed that decrease of HBQs correlated with increase of OH-HBQs in both the laboratory experiments and several distribution systems, supporting that OH-HBQs were more stable forms of HBQ DBPs. To understand the toxicological relevance of the OH-HBQs, we studied the in vitro toxicity with CHO-K1 cells and determined the IC50 of HBQs and OH-HBQs ranging from 15.9 to 72.9 μM. While HBQs are 2-fold more toxic than OH-HBQs, both HBQs and OH-HBQs are substantially more toxic than the regulated DBPs.

Related Papers

• → Orbitrap Mass Spectrometry(2013)634 cited
• → Evolution of Orbitrap Mass Spectrometry Instrumentation(2015)451 cited
• → Evaluation of the Orbitrap Mass Spectrometer for the Molecular Fingerprinting Analysis of Natural Dissolved Organic Matter(2016)163 cited
• → Validation and Evaluation of High-Resolution Orbitrap Mass Spectrometry on Molecular Characterization of Dissolved Organic Matter(2020)75 cited
• → High resolution orbitrap mass spectrometry in comparison with tandem mass spectrometry for confirmation of anabolic steroids in meat(2013)53 cited