Potential metabolism of pharmaceuticals in radish: Comparison of in vivo and in vitro exposure

Yuanbo Li, Ya Hui Chuang, J. Brett Sallach, Wei Zhang, Stephen A. Boyd, Hui Li*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Metabolism of pharmaceuticals in plants is important to evaluate their fate and accumulation in vegetables, and subsequently the risks to human health. However, limited knowledge is available to evaluate metabolism of pharmaceuticals in plants due to the lack of appropriate research approaches. In this study, radish was selected as a model plant to investigate metabolism of pharmaceuticals in intact plants (in vivo) growing in hydroponic solution and in plant tissue enzyme extracts (in vitro). For caffeine, six phase-I demethylation metabolites identified in the intact radish plant were also found in the plant enzyme extracts. After 7 days of in vivo exposure, the amount of the identified metabolites was about 5.4 times greater than the parent compound caffeine in radish roots. Furthermore, the metabolism potential of fifteen pharmaceuticals in radish was evaluated on the basis of mass balance. After 7 days of hydroponic exposure, oxytetracycline, trimethoprim, carbamazepine, lincomycin, monensin and tylosin manifested relatively less extent of metabolism with the mass recoveries ranging from 52.3 to 78.2%. In contrast, 17 β-estradiol, sulfamethoxazole, sulfadiazine, estrone, triclosan, acetaminophen, caffeine, carbadox and lamotrigine underwent extensive metabolism with only 3.0 to 32.1% of the parent compound recovered. In the in vitro system, 17 β-estradiol, estrone, triclosan, oxytetracycline, acetaminophen, sulfadiazine and sulfamethoxazole were readily metabolized in radish root enzyme extracts with 1.8 to 34.0% remaining after 96-h exposure. While in the leaf enzyme extracts, only triclosan was rapidly metabolized with 49.2% remaining, and others pharmaceuticals were ≥60%, indicating that the varying extents of metabolism occurred in different plant parts. This study highlights the importance of pharmaceutical metabolism in plants, and suggests that plant tissue enzyme extracts could serve as an alternative tool to assess pharmaceutical metabolism in plants. Similar metabolism patterns were observed for rapidly metabolized pharmaceuticals in both in vivo (radish tissue enzyme extracts) and in vivo (the intact plant) exposure.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)962-969
Number of pages8
JournalEnvironmental Pollution
Volume242
Issue numberA
Early online date19 Jul 2018
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Nov 2018

Bibliographical note

©2018 Elsevier Ltd. This is an author-produced version of the published paper. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher’s self-archiving policy.

Keywords

  • Pharmaceuticals
  • Plant metabolism
  • Plant tissue enzyme extracts
  • Plant uptake

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