2025 SOT - Maternal, fetal, and neonatal toxicity of the ultra-short chain PFAS perfluoropropionic acid (PFPrA) in the Sprague-Dawley rat

This subproduct is an abstract for the 2025 Society of Toxicology Annual Meeting.  Ultra short-chain per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are increasingly being reported to constitute some of the highest detection frequencies and highest concentrations of target compounds in monitoring studies of surface and drinking water, but very little data exist on detections in human serum or urine.  Despite widespread occurrence and presumed human exposure there are, to our knowledge, no published toxicity studies with data for perfluoropropionic acid (PFPrA).  US EPA recently published a Human Health Toxicity Value for PFPrA based on increased relative liver weight data from a single unpublished study in adult mice.  Here, we conducted oral maternal exposure in Sprague-Dawley rats to evaluate potential maternal and developmental toxicity. 

Impact/Purpose

Ultra short-chain per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are increasingly being reported to constitute some of the highest detection frequencies and highest concentrations of target compounds in monitoring studies of surface and drinking water, but very little data exist on detections in human serum or urine.  Despite widespread occurrence and presumed human exposure there are, to our knowledge, no published toxicity studies with data for perfluoropropionic acid (PFPrA).  US EPA recently published a Human Health Toxicity Value for PFPrA based on increased relative liver weight data from a single unpublished study in adult mice.  Here, we conducted oral maternal exposure in Sprague-Dawley rats to evaluate potential maternal and developmental toxicity.  The studies described here, to our knowledge, are the only mammalian in vivo developmental toxicity studies for PFPrA.  The results provide highly-valuable dose response data for conducting human health risk assessment of this important emerging PFAS.  Very little toxicity data exist for ultra short-chain PFAS.  The data reported here along with the data published in our 2024 paper on the maternal and neonatal effects of PFMOAA are the only ultra-short chain PFAS developmental toxicity data publicly available.  Importantly, we have found that despite rapid clearance, the ultra short-chain carboxylate produce nearly identical hazard profiles to the longer change compounds.  This is highly important in regard to considering the cumulative effect that co-exposure with these environmentally relevant compounds may have with the persistent and bioaccumulative legacy PFAS.

Citation

Conley, J., C. Lambright, N. Evans, Jackie Bangma, J. Ford, D. Jenkins-Hill, AND L. Gray. 2025 SOT - Maternal, fetal, and neonatal toxicity of the ultra-short chain PFAS perfluoropropionic acid (PFPrA) in the Sprague-Dawley rat. 2025 Society of Toxicology Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL, March 16 - 20, 2025.