Rapid, High-Throughput Detection of Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals Using Autobioluminescent Cellular Bioreporters

Overexposure to endocrine disruptor chemicals (EDCs) can result in serious health problems, yet they are commonly found in everyday items such as pesticides, personal care products, nutritional supplements, and plastics. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, along with other such agencies from around the world, have therefore man-dated that new approaches be designed to screen these products for the presence of EDCs. However, despite the presence of several types of extant EDC detection assays, there still exists a backlog approaching 87,000 chemicals currently awaiting screening. Autobioluminescent detection systems, which utilize cellular bioreporters capable of autonomously modulating bioluminescent signals without the need for external stimula- tion or investigator interaction, provide an attractive means for addressing this backlog because of their reduced performance costs and increased throughput relative to alterna- tive assay systems. This chapter reviews the variety of existing EDC detection assays and evaluates the performance of a representative autobioluminescent estrogen-responsive EDC bioreporter to provide an overview of how autobioluminescence can be used to improve EDC detection using in vitro assay systems.