Organotin contamination in seafood from the Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico: Is there a potential risk for the health of consumers?

Overview

Uc-Peraza and colleagues measured butyltins and phenyltins in edible muscle or soft tissue of commercially important fish and shellfish from the Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico. The study reports organotin concentrations as tin-equivalent values, but the analytes are organotin species: TBT, DBT, MBT, TPhT, DPhT, and MPhT. These values should remain organotin-specific and must not be pooled as inorganic tin or total tin occurrence.

Key numbers

The abstract reports average total organotin concentrations in ng Sn g-1 dry weight by seafood group:

Table 1 reports species-level organotin sums in ng Sn g-1 dry weight:

Section 3.2 states that total butyltins ranged from 16.2 +/- 3.1 to 71.1 +/- 20.2 ng Sn g-1, and total phenyltins ranged from 5.1 +/- 1.7 to 164.7 +/- 23.1 ng Sn g-1 in seafood. In fish, TBT, DBT, and MBT varied from 9.0 +/- 0.0 to 28.8 +/- 9.4, 7.6 +/- 0.2 to 21.7 +/- 6.3, and 6.0 +/- 1.2 to 20.6 +/- 5.5 ng Sn g-1, respectively. Fish TPhT, DPhT, and MPhT varied from ≤ 0.7 to ≤ 3.3, 3.1 +/- 1.8 to 33.1 +/- 0.6, and ≤ 0.7 to 129.9 +/- 23.7 ng Sn g-1, respectively.

Table 2 reports wet-weight organotin concentrations and EDI in ng Sn kg-1 body weight day-1:

The authors state that organotins were detected in all samples. Phenyltins, especially MPhT, were predominant among fish species, while butyltins, especially TBT, were predominant among shellfish. TPhT was below the quantification limit in most samples. HQ and HI values were lower than 1 for consumption of fish, mollusks, and crustaceans.

Methods (brief)

Sampling was performed in February-March 2018 at five Yucatán Peninsula fishing sites: Playa El Niño, Yucalpetén, Celestún, Champotón, and Ciudad del Carmen. Samples were obtained directly from local fishermen and included demersal and pelagic fish, gastropods, oysters, and shrimp. Edible tissues were dissected as dorsal muscle for fish, tail carapace-free muscle for shrimp, and all soft tissue for oysters and gastropods; tissues were freeze-dried, homogenized, and stored at -20 °C. Butyltins and phenyltins were extracted from 0.5 g freeze-dried tissue, derivatized with sodium tetraethyl borate, cleaned up on activated silica, and analyzed by Perkin Elmer Clarus 500MS GC/MS. ERM-CE477 mussel tissue was used for quality control; recoveries were 82 +/- 4.0% for TBT, 75 +/- 5.5% for DBT, and 95 +/- 9.6% for MBT. LOD values for TBT, DBT, MBT, TPhT, DPhT, and MPhT were ≤ 0.7 ng Sn g-1; LOQs were ≤ 1.3 ng Sn g-1 for DBT, MBT, and DPhT and ≤ 3.3 ng Sn g-1 for TBT, TPhT, and MPhT.

Implications

This source contributes direct organotin occurrence data for marine fish and shellfish from Mexico. It is useful for seafood routing because it reports both organotin species sums in dry-weight tissue and exposure inputs on a wet-weight basis. The values are tin-equivalent organotin species and should route to organotin context, not to inorganic tin or total tin (Sn) standards.

Update history

The five most recent substantive edits to this page, classified major (evidence or structure moved), correction (a published value or statement was wrong and has been fixed), or minor (narrative rewritten without changing the underlying evidence). Each description is derived from what the edit did to this page; the linked commit is the authoritative record, routine regeneration passes are excluded, and the full version history lives in git.