Chemical compounds used in sunscreen are potential endocrine disruptors: a molecular docking study

Commercial sunscreen products are currently experiencing an increase in terms of usage as a means to reduce skin cancer produced by ultraviolet (UV) radiation from sunlight. Nevertheless, there are concerns of bioactive compounds used in the sunscreen products, which link to endocrine-disruptive compounds. In this work, we predicted the estrogenic effect of five commonly used chemical compounds in the commercial sunscreen products based on their molecular interactions with estrogen receptor (ER) -alpha and -beta. Molecular docking method was employed to study the binding between these compounds and ERs. Among the five studied compounds, enzacamene exhibited the highest binding affinity to both ER-alpha and -beta (>-9.0 kcal/mol), followed by homosalate (--8.0 kcal/mol) and 3-benzophenone (­ -7.0 kcal/mol). Octinoxate and padimate-0 exhibited binding affinity ranging from -6.3 to -6.9 kcal/mol. In summary, binding affinities of these compounds resemble the estradiol binding. Hence, the bioactive compounds used for the sunscreen products may affect the estrogen regulatory and functions.