Endocrine disruptors: an overview and discussion on issues surrounding their impact on marine animals.

Endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs) are a growing concern because they are seriously harmful to wildlife both by direct damage to animals and through more subtle effects on growth, development and reproduction. In the past decades, there have been many studies about toxicological impact of EDCs on species. The NCBI Data-Base has amassed hundreds of research papers regarding the effects or mechanism of EDCs in marine animals. However, researchers still face new scientific challenges in some critical issues related to the understanding of EDCs and their effect on animals. Specifically, issues surrounding the selection of an appropriate model organism to document their effects, reconsidering biomarkers, and using “omics” technique to study the precise mechanism of EDCs warrant discussion. In addition, EDCs are now taken into account to partly explain the dwindling biodiversity of marine ecosystem. Yet, whether there exists a causal association between EDCs exposure and variety deterioration of species is still unknown. This review provides an in depth commentary on the issues mentioned above. [JMATE. 2009; 2(2): 7-17]