Study of the incorporation mechanism of organic chemicals into hair

Hair presents several advantages for biomonitoring the exposure to pollutants. For instance, this matrix is representative of the mid to long term exposure depending on the length of the sample. However the question concerning the hair incorporation mechanism of chemicals remain partially unravelled. The subject of the present PhD was the “study of the incorporation mechanisms of organic chemicals into hair” (StICHa). Therefore we focused on the influence of biological and physicochemical parameters on the incorporation of pesticides into hair. The results presented in the project were obtained from three experiments whose two animal experiments conducted on rats. The first one allowed to link levels of exposure of pesticides to the corresponding concentrations in plasma and in hair. This also allowed to study the accumulation of pesticides in the rat body over time and to investigate the influence of the pesticide physicochemical properties on their incorporation into hair. The second one provided pharmacokinetic (PK) parameters of pesticides in blood after a single exposure and highlighted the concept of background exposure corresponding to the detectable chemicals concentration in the animals before exposure due to environmental contamination. An in vitro test was also conducted to investigate bonds between pesticides and blood components and their influence on hair incorporation.