Marine Pollution Bulletin 2025
Ecotoxicological effects of sunscreen derived organic and inorganic UV filters on marine organisms: A critical review
Conclusion : "It is evident that UV filters can have significant biological effects on marine organisms when exposed to environmentally relevant concentrations, including, but not limited to, reproductive and growth inhibition, DNA mutations and oxidative damage. However, chemical characterisation adopted by many of the studies do not provide an integrated approach to determine the true potential hazard of UV filters to biological organisms.
Current research has largely focussed on the ecotoxicological effects of only a selected UV filters (e.g. benzophenone-3, 4-methylbenzylidene camphor) with limited studies on inorganic and new-age synthetic filters. Future research should address these gaps by exploring a wider range of UV filters and by adopting a food-chain approach to assess bioconcentration, bioaccumulation and biomagnification potential, allowing for predictions with ERA. A wider range of organisms from varied geographical locations and life stages should be used to fully determine the risk at all trophic levels from different global latitudes. Additionally, as the effects of degradation and transformation products is largely unknown, we cannot accurately predict the ecotoxicological effects without an understanding of the mechanisms with which they breakdown, their stability, and their environmental fate. Improvements to sampling strategies and the chemical analysis of environmental samples, the use of more environmentally appropriate methods (i.e. UV lighting), and an integrated approach incorporating an array of exposure durations (i.e. acute vs chronic) and methods (i.e. dietary, sediment, aqueous), will all contribute to better constraining the environmental and toxicological effects of UV filters on marine organisms at different biological levels of organisation."
