Figure 1.

Estrogenic activity of phthalates and substitutes in the E-Screen agonist assay. MCF-7 cells were exposed for 120 h to different concentrations of DEHP, DINP (a), DEHT, DINCH, TOTM (b), POLYSORB® isosorbide, or POLYSORB® ID 46 (c). Results represent the mean proliferative effect compared to SC (=1) ±SD of 3 replicates from one representative assay out of 2 assays. ∗∗Statistically significant increase compared to SC (p < 0.01). In the competitive confirmation assay (Figure 2), the cell proliferation induced by 30 μM DEHP was statistically significantly decreased in the presence of the reference antiestrogen ICI 182,780. This confirms that the DEHP-induced MCF-7 cell proliferation was mediated by an estrogenic mechanism.