Computational Toxicology for Environmental Criteria/Benchmarks of Emerging Contaminants

A special issue of Toxics (ISSN 2305-6304). This special issue belongs to the section "Novel Methods in Toxicology Research".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 December 2024 | Viewed by 1834

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
School of Environment & Natural Resources, Renmin University of China, Beijing, China
Interests: environmental criteria and risk assessment of emerging contaminants; machine learning; QSAR
Environment Research Institute, Shandong University, Qingdao 266237, China
Interests: environmental behavior and ecological effects of emerging contaminants; environmental remediation and safety
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

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Guest Editor
School of Environmental and Health, Jianghan University, Wuhan, China
Interests: deep learning; generative AI; molecular dynamics simulations

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Hundreds of millions of chemicals have entered the environment as a result of industrialization; however, the understanding of their ecological and health hazards is still very limited. In particular, emerging contaminants such as micro/nanoplastics, endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs), and persistent organic pollutants (POPs) are in urgent need of environmental management. The rapid development of computational toxicology is bridging the data gap and providing effective solutions for the comprehensive assessment of hazards. Compared with traditional toxicology experiments, computational toxicology has several advantages, including cost-effectiveness, biologically friendliness, and low hardware platform requirements. Therefore, computational toxicology is expected to become a new driving force for the innovative development of toxicology-based environmental criteria and risk assessments.

This Special Issue invites contributions from diverse computational toxicological modeling studies pertaining to environmental criteria/benchmarks and risk assessments. We strongly encourage submissions on all relevant topics including the virtual screening of preferential controlled pollutants, quantitative structure–activity relationships (QSARs), simulations of toxicological mechanisms, the modeling of internal and external exposure, interspecies differences, and  environmental impacts on the bioavailability of emerging pollutants, as well as their environmental geochemical behaviors. The scope of research also includes new approaches for environmental criterion development, uncertainty analysis in risk assessments, and life cycle risk assessments. Further, contributions originating from meta-analyses based on the present datasets are also embraced for inclusion in this Special Issue.

Dr. Yunsong Mu
Dr. Jing Liu
Dr. Huiming Cao
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Keywords

  • emerging contaminants
  • computational toxicology
  • predictive model
  • QSAR
  • machine learning
  • molecular simulation
  • criteria/benchmark
  • risk assessment
  • uncertainty analysis

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

17 pages, 5234 KiB  
Article
Analysis of Binding Modes between Three Perfluorosulfonates and GPER Based on Computational Simulation and Multiple Spectral Methods
by Wenhui Liang, Yanting Chen, Yuchen Wei, Zeyu Song, Cancan Li, Yanhong Zheng and Zhongsheng Yi
Toxics 2024, 12(5), 315; https://doi.org/10.3390/toxics12050315 - 26 Apr 2024
Viewed by 1462
Abstract
Perfluorinated compounds (PFCs) belong to a significant category of global environmental pollutants. Investigating the toxicological effects of PFCs within biological systems is of critical significance in various disciplines such as life sciences, environmental science, chemistry, and ecotoxicology. In this study, under simulated human [...] Read more.
Perfluorinated compounds (PFCs) belong to a significant category of global environmental pollutants. Investigating the toxicological effects of PFCs within biological systems is of critical significance in various disciplines such as life sciences, environmental science, chemistry, and ecotoxicology. In this study, under simulated human physiological conditions (pH = 7.4), a combination of multiple spectroscopic techniques and computational simulations was employed to investigate the impact of perfluorinated compounds (PFCs) on the G protein-coupled estrogen receptor (GPER). Additionally, the research focused on exploring the binding modes and toxicological mechanisms between PFCs and GPER at the molecular level. All three perfluorinated sulfonic acids (PFSAs) can induce quenching of GPER fluorescence through static quenching and non-radiative energy transfer. Steady-state fluorescence calculations at different temperatures revealed apparent binding constants in the order of 106, confirming a strong binding affinity between the three PFSAs and GPER. Molecular docking studies indicated that the binding sites of PFSAs are located within the largest hydrophobic cavity in the head region of GPER, where they can engage in hydrogen bonding and hydrophobic interactions with amino acid residues within the cavity. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, three-dimensional fluorescence, and molecular dynamics simulations collectively indicate that proteins become more stable upon binding with small molecules. There is an overall increase in hydrophobicity, and alterations in the secondary structure of the protein are observed. This study deepens the comprehension of the effects of PFCs on the endocrine system, aiding in evaluating their potential impact on human health. It provides a basis for policy-making and environmental management while also offering insights for developing new pollution monitoring methods and drug therapies. Full article
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