High Amounts of Halogenated Natural Products in Sperm Whales (Physeter macrocephalus) from Two Italian Regions in the Mediterranean Sea.

ABSTRACT: Halogenated natural products (HNPs) are considered to be emerging contaminants whose environmental distribution and fate are only incompletely known. Therefore, several persistent and bioaccumulative HNP groups, together with man-made polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), were quantified in the blubber of nine sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus) stranded on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in Italy. The naturally occurring polybrominated hexahydroxanthene derivatives (PBHDs; sum of TetraBHD and TriBHD) were the most prominent substance class with up to 77,000 ng/g blubber. The mean PBHD content (35,800 ng/g blubber) even exceeded the one of PCBs (28,400 ng/g blubber), although the region is known to be highly contaminated with man-made cont

SUBMITTER: Schweizer S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11036390 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature