Method Development for the Detection of Hydroxylated Polychlorinated Biphenyls in Tissue Sample

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are among the most hazardous environmental pollutants, causing a wide variety of health problems even at very low levels of exposure. Their metabolites, hydroxy-PCBs (HO-PCBs), pose their own health threats as well. While PCBs are readily detectable, no convenient method has been developed for the detection of HO-PCBs in biological tissue samples. In the current study, we investigated methods that may facilitate the detection of HO-PCBs and PCBs simultaneously in tissue samples. First, GC-MS calibration plots were established for several HO-PCB species, and their sensitivities were compared with that of the standard PCBs. Next, several parameters were tested to optimize the procedure of extracting HO-PCBs from the tissue sample, derivatizing the hydroxyl groups, and removing the lipid contaminants. Finally, a method was developed that was capable of detecting HO-PCBs spiked to a tissue extraction sample with reasonable recovery. To fully evaluate the usefulness of the developed method, future studies will include the application of the method to the analysis of tissue samples containing PCBs and HO-PCBs.