Marine mammal physiology and overall health are affected by environmental exposures. Exposome (cumulative environmental exposure) includes diet, pathogens, and industrial pollution known to have mutagenic, carcinogenic, and endocrine disruption properties. To better understand the effects of environmental exposures and potential health hazards to marine mammals (dolphins and sea lions) spending prolonged time in relatively enclosed areas, we assess the water quality at sites of interest: animal pens, surrounding areas, and potential sources of pollution within the San Diego Bay. We deploy chemical sensors – novel Composite Integrative Passive Samplers (CIPS), at sites of interest for several weeks to measure time-weighted exposure averages. CIPS capture both water- and lipid-soluble chemicals and can characterize > 1,000 compounds, including many carcinogens, mutagens, and other persistent organic industrial pollutants. Besides sea water chemical profiling, we collect bay mussels and oysters at the sites: their tissues are used for the chemical content analysis and metagenomic profiling of bacteria, viruses, parasites, and other microbes. Moreover, archived marine mammalian tissue specimens (blood, serum, brain, liver, and blubber), are used to quantify tissue-specific bioconcentration of persistent organic pollutants. Our long-term goal is to overlay animals’ genomic, transcriptomic, physiological, and tissue chemistry profiles with comprehensive sites’ chemistry data to better understand the exposome-immunogenomic interactions and variation among marine mammals in San Diego Bay.

*For more about this project, contact goran@bozinstitute.org