PARENT SESSION
MA4 - Biotransformation / Metabolism / Degradation
Chair: Zepp, Richard¹, ¹ U.S. EPA, Athens, GA
8:00 AM to 12:00 PM - Monday, 18 November 2002
Room Ballroom F

(198) Patterns of PCB congeners in Blood Serum of Akwesasne Mohawks.

Johnson, Glenn^*,1, Tarbell, A², DeCaprio, Anthony³, ¹ Energy & Geoscience Institute - University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA² School of Public Health - State University of New York at Albany, Rensselaer, New York, USA³

ABSTRACT- The Mohawk Nation at Akwesasne is a Native American community of about 10,000 people located at the juncture of the State of New York and the Provinces of Ontario and Quebec on the St. Lawrence River. From 1995 to 2000, the University at Albany (in partnership with the Akwesasne Task Force on the Environment) conducted polychlorinated biphenyl analyses on blood specimens from over 750 adult Mohawk participants. This effort produced one of the largest human congener-specific PCB databases available. In this present study, we apply the pattern recognition method polytopic vector analysis (PVA) to Mohawk PCB data set. Receptor modeling methods such as PVA have often been used in investigation of persistent organic pollutants in air, sediment and water, but have seldom seen application in biological matrices. PVA was used to determine the number of chemical fingerprints present, the chemical composition of each, and their relative distribution among the cohort members. Derived end-members were compared to known Aroclor compositions and other potential source/alteration patterns. One of the derived end-member patterns was preferentially enhanced in recalcitrant congeners such as PCBs 153 and 138. Two of the derived patterns resemble heavier commercial Aroclors (1254 & 1262). However, the primary PCB source for the Akwesasne Mohawk cohort is believed to be Aroclor 1248, not 1254 or 1262. None of the derived patterns matches an unaltered 1248 pattern. The heavier PCB patterns that match 1254 and 1262, are generally observed in highest proportions in older subjects. This suggests either (1) a difference in exposure to source over time; or (2) that the apparent 1262 pattern may be the result of residual, recalcitrant congeners present from a metabolism of a lighter Aroclor source such as Aroclor 1248.

Key words: blood serum, polychlorinated biphenyls, polytopic vector analysis, akwesasne mohawk