Endocrine disrupting Chemicals: Their biological aspects

The effect of Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals (EDCs) upon an organism is mainly mediated by its own hormone receptors and the signal transduction systems linked to them. This leads to a scientific assumption that EDCs can affect the host in a very low concentration as the intrinsic hormones can do, and EDCs may affect multiple signaling systems and may cause an interaction with other signal transduction systems, resulting in antagonistic, additive, or synergistic effects. Our current scientific assumption would be that the effects of EDCs on an adult organism may be subtle. The established homeostatic mechanism will limit them to reversible responses. On the other hand, the developing organism may be influenced by the EDCs in a irreversible way (for example, malformations or hypogenesis of organs). The hormonal systems critically control certain steps of the development of the fetus. Unfortunately, the knowledge of the mechanism related to hormone regulations on embryogenesis is not sufficient to assess the possible adverse effects caused by EDCs on organism in that state. That is why we have to further investigate this issue not only from the chemical side but also from the basic biological side to fully understand the molecular interactions taking place in our body.