ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING AND HUMAN EXPOSURE ASSESSMENT USING IMMUNOCHEMICAL TECHNIQUES

The use of immunochemical technologies including, but not limited to, immunoassays is expanding to include various aspects of environmental analysis. Ultimately, the basis for environmental investigations is co ncern about human and ecological exposure to potentially toxic compoun ds. In addition to the well-described attributes of immunochemical met hods (ease of use, cost savings, reduced use of organic solvents), the se methods also provide a direct and sensitive analytical process for determining human exposure to analytes of interest. Levels of toxic co mpounds to which humans are exposed are typically very low. Often, the target compounds in exposure studies are products of xenobiotic metab olism and are difficult to analyze by traditional chromatographic meth ods due to in vivo conjugation and a high molecular weight. To determi ne human exposure, large-scale surveys of various environmental matric es and body fluids must be designed and implemented. The implementatio n must consider several analytical and economic criteria: sensitivity, selectivity, cost and sample throughput. Immunochemical methods are w ell suited to these analytical rigors and their use is described herei n. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V.