Hidden drivers of low-dose pharmaceutical pollutant mixtures revealed by the novel GSA-QHTS screening method
dc.contributor.author
dc.date.accessioned
2017-05-09T10:17:19Z
dc.date.available
2017-05-09T10:17:19Z
dc.date.issued
2016-09-07
dc.identifier.uri
dc.description.abstract
The ecological impacts of emerging pollutants such as pharmaceuticals are not well understood. The lack of experimental
approaches for the identification of pollutant effects in realistic settings (that is, low doses, complex mixtures,
and variable environmental conditions) supports the widespread perception that these effects are often unpredictable.
To address this, we developed a novel screening method (GSA-QHTS) that couples the computational
power of global sensitivity analysis (GSA) with the experimental efficiency of quantitative high-throughput screening
(QHTS). We present a case study where GSA-QHTS allowed for the identification of the main pharmaceutical pollutants
(and their interactions), driving biological effects of low-dose complex mixtures at the microbial population level. The
QHTS experiments involved the integrated analysis of nearly 2700 observations from an array of 180 unique low-dose
mixtures, representing the most complex and data-rich experimental mixture effect assessment of main pharmaceutical
pollutants to date. An ecological scaling-up experiment confirmed that this subset of pollutants also affects typical
freshwater microbial community assemblages. Contrary to our expectations and challenging established scientific
opinion, the bioactivity of the mixtures was not predicted by the null mixture models, and the main drivers that were
identified by GSA-QHTS were overlooked by the current effect assessment scheme. Our results suggest that current
chemical effect assessment methods overlook a substantial number of ecologically dangerous chemical pollutants
and introduce a new operational framework for their systematic identification
dc.format.mimetype
application/pdf
dc.language.iso
eng
dc.publisher
American Association for the Advancement of Science
dc.relation.isformatof
Reproducció digital del document publicat a: http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.1601272
dc.relation.ispartof
Science Advances, 2016, núm. 2, p. e1601272
dc.relation.ispartofseries
Articles publicats (D-CCAA)
dc.rights
Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Spain
dc.rights.uri
dc.title
Hidden drivers of low-dose pharmaceutical pollutant mixtures revealed by the novel GSA-QHTS screening method
dc.type
info:eu-repo/semantics/article
dc.rights.accessRights
info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
dc.embargo.terms
Cap
dc.type.version
info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion
dc.identifier.doi
dc.identifier.eissn
2375-2548