Estimating the early-life exposure to two perfluorinated compounds (PFOS and PFOA) using PBPK modeling and biomarker measurements

Abstract : Large-scale biomonitoring studies usually rely on biomarkers measurements from single time points to assess the human exposure to chemicals. Reverse dosimetry approaches were developed to help the interpretation of such biomarkers and aim at reconstructing the external exposure using the measured biomarkers, a physiologically based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) model accounting for the processes that the chemical undergoes in the human body and individual characteristics of the population. Such approaches are also valuable to simulate exposure between biomarker measurement time points, especially during critical windows of exposure. In this work, we propose to estimate the early-life exposure of children to two perfluorinated compounds, perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA). These compounds are ubiquitous contaminants that have been detected worldwide in environmental media and human tissues, and are suspected to induce adverse reproductive and developmental outcomes.