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Endocrine Disruptors (Xenoestrogens): An Overview

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Plastics in Dentistry and Estrogenicity

Abstract

In the last decades, a large number of natural and synthetic chemicals have been identified as interfering with the endocrine system; they are collectively termed endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) or endocrine disruptors. According to the working definition of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), an endocrine disruptor is “an exogenous agent that interferes with the synthesis, release, transport, metabolism, binding, action, or elimination of natural hormones in the body responsible for the maintenance of homeostasis, reproduction, regulation of developmental processes and/or behavior”[1]. Endocrine disruptors comprise more than 100.000 synthetic chemical compounds that belong to different classes. A subset of the endocrine disruptors, including synthetic estrogens, natural products, commercial chemicals, industrial compounds, or by-products among which plastics, are known as environmental estrogens or xenoestrogens; they confer estrogenic potential (“estrogenicity”) translated as affinity to the estrogen receptors (ER) (α or β), thus ability to activate expression of estrogen-dependent genes or stimulation of cell proliferation of ER-competent cells [2].

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  1. Department of Pharmacology, School of Medicine, University of Athens, Athens, Greece

    George Dimogerontas & Charis Liapi

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    Theodore Eliades

  2. Dept. of Dental Materials, University of Athens School o Dentistry, Athens, Greece

    George Eliades

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Dimogerontas, G., Liapi, C. (2014). Endocrine Disruptors (Xenoestrogens): An Overview. In: Eliades, T., Eliades, G. (eds) Plastics in Dentistry and Estrogenicity. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-29687-1_1

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