Abstract：
The alarming human health effects induced by endocrine disruptors (ED) have raised the attention of public opinion and policy makers leading worldwide to regulations that are continuously improved to reduce exposure to them. However, decreasing the exposure levels is challenging because EDs are ubiquitous and exposure occurs through multiple routes. The main exposure route is considered ingestion, but, recently, the inhalation has been hypothesized as an important additional route. To explore this scenario, some authors applied bioassays to assess the endocrine activity of air. This review summarizes for the first time the applied methods and the obtained evidences about the in vitro endocrine activity of airborne particulate matter (PM) collected outdoor. Among the bioassay endpoints, (anti)oestrogenic and (anti)androgenic activities were selected because are the most studied endocrine activities. A total of 24 articles were ultimately included in this review. Despite evidences are still scarce, the results showed that PM can induce oestrogenic, antioestrogenic, androgenic and antiandrogenic effects, suggesting that PM has an endocrine disrupting potential that should be considered because it could represent a further source of exposure to EDs. Although it is difficult to estimate how much inhalation can contribute to the total burden of EDs, endocrine activity of PM may increase the human health risk. Finally, the results pointed out that the overall endocrine activity is difficult to predict from the concentrations of individual pollutants, so the assessment using bioassays could be a valuable additional tool to quantify the health risk posed by EDs in air.
摘要：
内分泌干扰物（ED）引起的令人震惊的人类健康影响引起了公众舆论和政策制定者的关注，导致全球范围内的法规不断完善，以减少对它们的接触。然而,降低暴露水平是具有挑战性的，因为ED无处不在，暴露通过多种途径发生。主要的暴露途径被认为是摄入，但是,最近,吸入被认为是一种重要的额外途径.为了探索这个场景，一些作者应用生物测定来评估空气的内分泌活动。本文首次总结了室外收集的空气颗粒物（PM）的体外内分泌活动的应用方法和获得的证据。在生物测定终点中，选择（抗）雌激素和（抗）雄激素活性是因为研究最多的内分泌活性。最终共有24篇文章被纳入这篇综述。尽管证据仍然很少，结果表明，PM可以诱导雌激素，抗雌激素,雄激素和抗雄激素作用，这表明PM具有内分泌干扰潜力，应予以考虑，因为它可能代表了ED的进一步暴露源。虽然很难估计吸入对ED的总负担有多大贡献，PM的内分泌活动可能增加人体健康风险。最后,结果指出，从单个污染物的浓度很难预测整体内分泌活动，因此，使用生物测定法进行的评估可能是量化空气中ED带来的健康风险的有价值的附加工具。
