Ken-ichi Ohyama,1 Fumiko Nagai,1 and Yoshiteru Tsuchiya2
1Department of Environmental Health, Tokyo Metropolitan Research Laboratory of Public Health, Tokyo, Japan; 2Department of Applied Chemistry, Kogakuin University, Tokyo, Japan
Abstract
To examine the estrogenic activities of styrene oligomers, we carried out cell
proliferation assays with estrogen-sensitive MCF-7 cells and competitive binding
assays to human estrogen receptor
(hER
)
. The styrene oligomers tested were 1,3-diphenyl propane (SD-1) ,
2,4-diphenyl-1-butene (SD-2) , cis-1,2-diphenyl cyclobutane (SD-3) , trans-1,2-diphenyl
cyclobutane (SD-4) , 2,4,6-triphenyl-1-hexene (ST-1) ,
1a-phenyl-4a-(1´-phenylethyl) tetralin (ST-2) , 1a-phenyl-4e-(1´-phenylethyl)
tetralin (ST-3) , 1e-phenyl-4a-(1´-phenylethyl) tetralin (ST-4) ,
1e-phenyl-4e-(1´-phenylethyl) tetralin (ST-5) , 1e,3e,5a-triphenylcyclohexane
(ST-6) , and 1e,3e,5e-triphenylcyclohexane (ST-7) . In the MCF-7 cell
proliferation assay, styrene trimers (ST-1, ST-3, ST-4, and ST-5) had the
highest proliferative activities of the compounds tested. The relative potency
of these chemicals was 0.0002-0.0015%, which was comparable with that of
bisphenol A (0.0001-0.0025%) , and their relative proliferative effect was
51-104%. Styrene dimers (SD-3 and SD-4) also significantly increased the cell
yields. However, SD-1, SD-2, ST-2, ST-6, and ST-7 had insignificant
proliferative activities. The competitive binding assay revealed the binding
affinity of some styrene oligomers for hER
.
The order of their binding potency for hER
was as follows: ST-4 > ST-2 > ST-3 > ST-5 > ST-1 > SD-3 > SD-4
> SD-2 > SD-1. ST-6 and ST-7 did not appear to bind to hER
.
The present studies indicate that styrene dimers SD-3 and SD-4 and styrene
trimers ST-1, ST-3, ST-4, and ST-5 have estrogenic activity on MCF-7 cells and
binding affinity for hER
.
These compounds might be endocrine disrupters. Key words: binding
affinities, cell
proliferative activities, estrogenic
activities, human
estrogen receptor
,
MCF-7 cells,
styrene
oligomers. Environ Health Perspect 109:699-703 (2001) . [Online 29
June 2001*]
http://ehpnet1.niehs.nih.gov/docs/2001/109p699-703ohyama/ abstract.html
Address correspondence to K. Ohyama, Department of Environmental Health, Tokyo Metropolitan Research Laboratory of Public Health, 24-1, Hyakunincho 3 chome, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 169-0073, Japan. Telephone: 81-3-3363-3231. Fax: 81-3-3368-4060. E-mail: ohyama@tokyo-eiken.go.jpWe thank A. Hamaoka and T. Yamamoto for technical assistance.
Received 6 December 2000 ; accepted 5 February 2001.
*Erratum. Figure 3 was changed on 18 June 2002. The erratum was published in EHP vol 110:7, page A 386.
Colborn et al. (8) designated styrene dimers and trimers as
endocrine disrupters in the Wingspread statement, and the Environmental
Agency, Government of Japan, cited styrene dimers and trimers as compounds
suspected of having endocrine-disruptive effects in its Strategic Programs on
Environmental Endocrine Disrupters (9). However, styrene oligomers were
reported to have no endocrine disruptive effect both in a MCF-7 cell
proliferation assay (10) and in a radioisotope (RI) receptor
competitive-binding assay using rat estrogen receptor (10,11).
Therefore, we tested 11 styrene oligomers including those found in food (4,5)
in a proliferation assay at an optimal initial cell concentration using human
breast tumor, highly estrogen-sensitive MCF-7 cells. We also examined the
binding potency of these styrene oligomers to human estrogen receptor
(hER
)
in a non-RI receptor competitive-binding assay.
Chemicals. The styrene dimers 1,3-diphenyl propane (SD-1), SD-2, cis-1,2-diphenyl cyclobutane (SD-3), and trans-1,2-diphenyl cyclobutane (SD-4) and styrene trimers ST-1, ST-2, ST-3, ST-4, ST-5, 1e,3e,5a-triphenylcyclohexane (ST-6), and 1e,3e,5e-triphenylcyclohexane (ST-7) were purchased from Hayashi Pure Chemical Industry. (Osaka, Japan). The positive control, 17ß-estradiol (E2), was obtained from Calbiochem (Richmond, CA, USA). The chemical structures of these compounds are shown in Figure 1, and the purity of the compounds is summarized in Table 1.
Figure 1. Chemical substances tested.

Table 1. Data on tested chemicals
Original concentration (mM) Compound Ethanol solutiona DMSO solutionb Supplier (code no.) Purity (%)c E2 0.001 0.1 Calbiochem (3301) > 99.5 SD-1 10 100 Hayashi PC (990-52331) 97.9 SD-2 10 100 Hayashi PC (990-52334) 99.0 SD-3 10 100 Hayashi PC (990-52332) 99.9 SD-4 10 100 Hayashi PC (990-52333) 99.4 ST-1 10 10 Hayashi PC (990-52335) 98.2 ST-2 1 1 Hayashi PC (990-52336) 98.2 ST-3 10 10 Hayashi PC (990-52337) 99.9 ST-4 10 10 Hayashi PC (990-52338) 99.5 ST-5 10 10 Hayashi PC (990-52339) 99.2 ST-6 10 3.6 Hayashi PC (990-52387) 99.6 ST-7 1 10 Hayashi PC (990-52388) 99.5 a Ethanol solution was used for MCF-7 cell proliferation assay. b DMSO solution was used for competitive binding assay. c Purity of the chemicals as reported by the suppliers.
Solvent for styrene oligomers. Styrene oligomers and E2
were dissolved in ethanol for the MCF-7 cell proliferative assay. Styrene
oligomers were dissolved in ethanol at the concentration of 10-2 M,
except for ST-2 and ST-6, which were dissolved at 10-3 M due to the
lower solubility of these compounds. The cell proliferation assay was
performed at
10-5 M styrene oligomers.
For a competitive binding assay, styrene oligomers and E2 were
dissolved in dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO). The assay was performed at
5 ×
10-3 M styrene oligomers. Glass Pasteur capillary pipettes were
used in handling the chemical solutions.
Culture medium. Dulbecco's modification of Eagle's Medium (DME) containing phenol red and fetal bovine serum (FBS) were purchased from Nissui (Tokyo, Japan) and Hyclone (Logan, UT, USA), respectively. Phenol red-free DME (Cat. no. 23800-022) was obtained from Gibco BRL (Grand Island, NY, USA)
Removal of sex steroids by charcoal-dextran treatment of serum. We removed sex steroids from FBS by charcoal-dextran stripping (CDFBS) (12). Charcoal and dextran T70 were purchased from Sigma (St. Louis, MO, USA) and Amersham Pharmacia Biotech (Uppsala, Sweden), respectively.
Cell line and cell culture conditions. Estrogen-sensitive human breast tumor MCF-7 cells were provided by Ana M. Soto (Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, USA). For routine maintenance, cells were grown in 5% FBS medium (DME with phenol red supplemented with 80 mg/L kanamycin, 50 mg/L gentamycin, 4 mM l-glutamine, 2.24 g/L sodium hydrogen carbonate, and 5% FBS) in an atmosphere of 5% CO2/95% air with saturating humidity at 37°C. Cells were subcultured every 2 weeks. The cells detached by 0.05% trypsin were plated at an initial concentration of 12,500 cells/mL. The 5% FBS medium in the cell cultures was replaced with fresh medium twice a week.
MCF-7 cell proliferation assay. Phenol red-free DME 8.3 g/L was supplemented with 1 g/L glucose, 110 mg/L sodium pyruvate, 80 mg/L kanamycin, 50 mg/L gentamycin, and 12 mM HEPES (plain DME). The 5% CDFBS medium for proliferation assay consisted of plain DME, 4 mM l-glutamine, 2.24 g/L sodium hydrogen carbonate, and 5% CDFBS. The E-SCREEN assay to evaluate MCF-7 cell proliferation was performed according to a technique modified from that originally described by Soto et al. (13). Briefly, MCF-7 cells cultured for 11 days were trypsinized and plated in 24-well plates (Falcon, Franklin Lakes, NJ, USA) at an initial concentration of 40,000 cells/mL of 5% FBS medium/well. After the cells were allowed to attach for 24 hr, 0.9 mL of 5% CDFBS medium was substituted for the seeding medium. The solution of chemicals in ethanol was diluted with plain DME to various concentrations, and 0.1 mL of that was added in wells. The ethanol concentration in culture medium did not exceed 0.1%. The cells were cultured for 6 days in an atmosphere of 5% CO2/95% air with saturating humidity at 37°C. The medium was not changed at all over the course of the experiment. The assay was terminated by removing the medium from wells. We calculated the number of cells by measuring the amount of protein stained with sulforhodamine-B (SRB; Wako PC, Osaka, Japan) as described by Brotons et al. (7) and Villalobos et al. (14). In this assay, the cell yield in 10-10 M E2 was 3.6-fold (SD = 0.825) higher than the solvent control. Differences between the values obtained in the presence of the test chemicals and those obtained in the solvent controls were assessed using the Newman-Keuls test. A p-value of < 0.01 was regarded as significant.
Competitive binding assay. The binding potency of test
chemicals to hER
was measured by non-RI receptor binding assay using the Estrogen-R(
)
Competitor Screening Kit (Wako PC) according to the manufacturer's
instructions. Briefly, the test chemical dissolved in DMSO and other reagents
including fluorescence-labeled E2 were mixed and competitively
bound to the hER
coated on the microplate wells (15). DMSO was not effective in this
assay. The fluorescence intensity was measured at excitation (485 nm) and
emission (535 nm) with a fluorescence microplate reader apparatus, Spectra
Fluo (Tecan, Austria). We calculated the binding levels of the chemicals to
hER
from the decrease of fluorescence intensity.
MCF-7 cell proliferation assay. We compared the increase of
cell yield obtained at different concentrations of test chemicals with that
obtained in 10-10 M E2 (Figure 2). The increase of cell
yield with 10-10 M E2 (= the cell yield in 10-10 M
E2 - the cell yield in the solvent control) was expressed as 100%.
Data were expressed as the means ± SDs of three independent assays performed
in triplicate. This cell proliferation assay was performed at
10-5 M styrene oligomers because of low solubility in culture
media. EC50 is the concentration of test compound that produces 50%
of the increase of cell yield by 10-10 M E2. The values
of relative potency (RP), defined as the ratio of the EC50 of E2
to that of the test compound, and the values of relative proliferative effect
(RPE), defined as the ratio of the highest increase of cell yield obtained
with the test compound to that with 10-10 M E2, are
shown in Table 2. Results are summarized below:
Figure 2. Proliferative effects of styrene oligomers on MCF-7 cells. Increase of cell yield was calculated as [(the cell yield in various concentrations of test chemicals) - (cell yield in the solvent control)] ÷ [(the cell yield in 10-10 M E2) - (cell yield in the solvent control)] × 100. Each point is the mean ± SD of three independent assays in triplicate.

*Significantly different from hormone-free control (p < 0.01).
Table 2. Estrogenic effects of styrene oligomers.
MCF-7 cell proliferation assay Competitive binding assay Compound EC50 (M)a RP (%)b RPE (%)c IC20 (M)d RBA (%)e E2 1.4 x 10–11 100 100 6.0 x 10–11 100 SD-1 NE – – 1.2 x 10–4 0.005 SD-2 NE – – 7.6 x 10–5 0.008 SD-3 R < 50 – 31 2.4 x 10–5 0.025 SD-4 R < 50 – 29 5.6 x 10–5 0.011 ST-1 9.5 x 10–7 0.0015 81 1.2 x 10–5 0.05 ST-2 NE – – 6.2 x 10–6 0.097 ST-3 2.9 x 10–6 0.0005 86 9.7 x 10–6 0.062 ST-4 2.3 x 10–6 0.0006 104 2.6 x 10–6 0.228 ST-5 9.5 x 10–6 0.0002 51 1.0 x 10–5 0.058 ST-6 NE – – NE – ST-7 NE – – NE –
aEC50, the concentration of test compound producing 50% of the cell yield by 10–10 M E2; NE, value could not be estimated from the response curve; R < 50, maximal response observed for the test chemical at the concentrations tested was below 50%. bRP = [(EC50 of E2) _ (EC50 of the test compound)] x 100. cRPE = [(the highest cell yield obtained with the test compound) _ (the cell yield obtained with the solvent control –1)] = [(the cell yield obtained with 10–10 M E2) _ (the cell yield obtained with the solvent control) –1] x 100. dIC20 = the concentration of test chemicals for 20% inhibition of binding of fluorescence-labeled E E2 to ER . eRBA = (IC20 of E2) = (IC20 of the test compound) x 100.
Figure 3. The inhibition of fluorescence-labeled E2 binding
to hER
by various concentrations of styrene oligomers. Percent of inhibition was
calculated as [1 - (optical density in the presence of competitor) ÷ (optical
density in the absence of competitor)] ×
100. Each point is the mean ± SD of two independent assays performed in
duplicate.

*Significantly different from hormone-free control (p < 0.01).
We demonstrated that proliferation of MCF-7 cells was induced by styrene oligomers such as SD-3, SD-4, ST-1, ST-3, ST-4, and ST-5. The maximal proliferation occurred at a 10-5 M concentration of styrene oligomers. ST-1, ST-3, ST-4, or ST-5 produced complete concentration-response curves up to 10-5 M in the MCF-7 cell proliferation assay. ST-4 had the highest proliferative activity among the tested styrene oligomers and was a full agonist. ST-1, ST-3, and ST-5 had relatively high activity (RPE = 51-81%). The RP of styrene trimers ST-1, ST-3, ST-4, and ST-5 was 0.0002-0.0015% in the MCF-7 cell proliferation assay; these values were comparable to that of bisphenol A (0.0001-0.0025%) (16) and higher than that of 4-n-nonylphenol (RP = 0.000008-0.00007%) (16). The proliferative activities of styrene dimers were weaker than those of styrene trimers. Nobuhara et al. (10) reported that SD-3, SD-4, ST-1, and a mixture of tetralin ring trimers were not able to induce the proliferation of MCF-7 cells. They used MCF-7 cells (American Type Culture Collection; ATCC) purchased from Dainippon P. (Osaka, Japan) at an initial cell concentration of 2 × 104 cells/well in 12-well plates. Villalobos et al. (14) reported that MCF-7 supplied by A.M. Soto had the highest proliferative response to E2, and that the ATCC strain responded to E2 with a much smaller increase in cell yield. They also reported that ATCC MCF-7 cells should not be used in cell proliferation tests such as the E-SCREEN assay (14). Our results were obtained using MCF-7 cells provided by A.M. Soto at an initial concentration of 4 × 104 cells/well in 24-well plates. We confirmed that the initial concentration of 4 × 104 cells/well in 24-well plates was optimal for cell proliferation assays and a concentration < 2 × 104 cells/well in 24-well plates tended to increase the minimal concentration of test compound needed for maximal cell yield and the value of EC50 (17).
Styrene trimers such as ST-1, ST-2, ST-3, ST-4, and ST-5 and styrene dimers
such as SD-1, SD-2, SD-3, and SD-4 had binding affinity for hER.
RBAs of ST-1, ST-3, ST-4, and ST-5 were higher than those of SD-1, SD-2, SD-3,
and SD-4, although the high affinity for hER
was revealed at 5 ×
10-4 M styrene dimers. It seems that styrene trimers at
5 ×
10-5 M had low solubility in the reaction solution. We found that
the binding potency of styrene trimers except for ST-6 and ST-7 were higher
than that of styrene dimers. ST-2 had binding affinity for hER
and the RBA was higher than that of ST-1, ST-3, and ST-5, which had strong
proliferative activity, although the proliferative activity was not
significant. ST-2 may be estrogenic, although the proliferative activity could
not be ascertained due to extremely low solubility in the solvent for the
MCF-7 cell proliferation assay. We do not think that ST-6 and ST-7 are
estrogenic because the values could not be estimated from the response curves
in the cell proliferative assay and the competitive binding assay.
Azuma et al. (11) and Nobuhara et al. (10) reported that
SD-1, SD-3, SD-4, ST-1, ST-2, ST-3, and ST-5 had no affinity for ER in an RI
competitive binding assay. Although they examined the binding affinity of
styrene oligomers at
10-5 M for ER of rat uterus, we tested them at the concentrations
up to 5 ×
10-3 or 5 ×
10-4 M for purified human ER
.
If they had tested at a concentration > 5 ×
10-5 M, the binding activity would have been observed.
Estrogenic activities of styrene trimers differed depending on their chemical structures. Styrene trimers with a linear structure (ST-1) and a tetralin structure (ST-2, ST-3, ST-4, and ST-5) had estrogenic activity, but those with a cyclohexane structure (ST-6 or ST-7) did not.
The value of RPE from the MCF-7 cell proliferation assay correlated with
the value of RBA from the competitive binding assay. This result suggested
that the cell proliferative effect of these styrene oligomers was caused by
their binding to hER.
Styrene trimers such as ST-1, ST-3, ST-4, and ST-5 tested here moved from
containers into foods upon heat treatment, preservation for 24 hr at 20°C, or
cooking (3,4), and they are incorporated into the body with the foods.
The present study demonstrated that styrene oligomers, particularly styrene
trimers such as ST-1, ST-3, ST-4, and ST-5, had relatively high estrogenic
activities in the MCF-7 cell proliferation assay and the competitive binding
assay. These compounds might be endocrine disrupters. The effects of styrene
trimers on uteri have not been found in in vivo studies using
21-day-old rats (10). However, fetuses are more vulnerable to
estrogenic chemicals than are adults. The hormonal effects of these styrene
trimers with regard to reproduction and the nervous system should be
investigated using experimental animals, particularly in embryos.
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Last Updated: June 29, 2001
http://www.polystyrene.org/facts.html
[cited 14 October 2000]. Updated URL: http://www.polystyrene.org/polystyrene_facts/facts.html
9aug2007
immobilized microplate and fluorescence labeled estradiol. 2nd Annual Meeting
of Japan Society of Endocrine Disrupter Research, 9-10 December 1999, Kobe,
Japan. Tsukuba, Japan:Japan Society of Endocrine Disrupters Research, 1999;15.
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