Polychlorinated biphenyls and endocrine disruption in wildlife

Abstract

Polychlorinated biphenyls are a broad family of persistent environmental pollutants of enormous environmental significance, because despite being prohibited, they are still found in alarming concentrations in the environment, enough to trigger environmental biomonitoring programs. Associated to this need to continue identifying and quantifying them, their potential effect as endocrine disruptors is of great relevance, being an important issue from the point of view of the reproduction of wildlife species. In fact, in the last two decades, the scientific community interest about investigating the alterations in the functioning of the endocrine system of vertebrates and invertebrates because of exposure to chemicals has increased. In short, the present review summarizes current date knowledge on polychlorinated biphenyls quantified in wildlife, and their main effects on reproduction.