An ideal alternative should enable detection of the same xenobiotics as found in blood, at correlated concentrations, and without the postmortem effects.
Ideally, the biomarker will reflect relevant levels of exposure, will provide information on background levels of the chemical, its confounders are identified, and it is linked to an adverse health effect or correlated to concentration at the target organ (WHO, 2001).
Concentrations in bile strongly correlated with concentrations in adipose fat and liver, which may suggest an equilibration in adipose fat/bile and liver/bile and possible biliary excretion of persistent organochlorines in humans.
We found that phthalate metabolite concentrations in spot urine samples collected approximately 2 weeks apart were weakly to moderately correlated, while concentrations measured a year or more apart were less correlated.
Additive plaid models can only contain positively correlated metabolite concentrations, while metabolites that are negatively correlated can still be part of the same biochemical process.
Phenylalanine hydroxylase concentrations were higher in patients with advanced-stage disease (Neurauter et al, 2008) and correlated with concentrations of immune markers (tumour necrosis factor- α receptor and neopterin).
Arsenic, cadmium and zinc in corn grain were strongly positively correlated with concentrations in soil.
We note that this correction over the number of tests may be over-conservative owing to highly correlated metabolite concentrations.
Lymphocyte proliferation responses stimulated by PHA, LPS, and PDB were significantly and positively correlated with concentrations of the sum of PCBs measured in whole blood.
The organic P concentrations were strongly correlated with C concentrations across all soil structural components, suggesting similar stabilization mechanisms for organic P and C. In bulk soil and most structural components, around 60% of organic P was enzyme-hydrolyzable.
