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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2013 Apr 23.
Published in final edited form as: J Toxicol Environ Health B Crit Rev. 2009 Mar;12(3):175–187. doi: 10.1080/10937400902894152

Table 1.

Biomarkers of exposure applicable to human studies

Chemical Biomarkers by Biological Source
Blood Urine Buccal Cells Nails Breath Condensate
N-Nitroso compounds Methylation and pyridyloxobutylation DNA adducts, Hb adducts N-Nitrosoproline, NNAL, NNAL gluc NNAL Tobacco-specific nitrosamines
PAHs PAH-DNA adducts, albumin adducts, Hb adducts PAH metabolites e.g., 1-hydroxypyrene, 1-hydroxypyrene gluc, 1-naphthol, 2-naphthol PAH-DNA adducts
1,3-Butadiene DNA adducts, Hb adducts (THB-val, HB-val, pyr-val) mercapturic acids 1,3-Butadiene
Acrylamide DNA adducts (AA, GA), Hb adducts (AA, GA) AA, GA, mercapturic acid conjugates (AAMA and GAMA)

Abbreviations: AA, acrylamide; GA, glycidamide; gluc, glucuronide; Hb, hemoglobin; MA, mercapturic acid; NNAL, N-nitrosoproline and 4-(methylnitroso)-1-(3-pyridyl)-1-butanol; PAH, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon; pyr, pyrrolidine; THB-val, N-(2,3,4-trihydroxybutyl)valine; val, valine.