Perfluorinated compounds (PFCs) are widely used in industry and consumer products. The high-energy carbon-fluorine (C-F) bond renders these compounds resistant to hydrolysis, photolysis, microbial degradation, as well as metabolism by animals and makes them a new kind of persistent organic compound. PFCs have been detected in various environmental samples and in tissues or blood from human population and wildlife in recent years. Concern about PFCs in recent years is growing for their bioaccumulation and potentially health risk and they have become research hotspots in the field of environmental, ecotoxicological science, and etc. This review provides an overview of the current pollution conditions of perfluoroalkyl acids in abiotic and biotic matrices, the transform and metabolism of these compounds in organism and the recent advances in toxicological studies of PFCs. The present existing problems and the trends of future research on PFCs are also discussed in this review to provide more information for the further study of these compounds.

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