Time-Resolved Measurement of the Ionic Fraction of Atmospheric Fine Particulate Matter

n/

Risk of de‐novo formation of chlormequat and mepiquat in industrial cocoa products assessed by ion chromatography coupled with high‐resolution mass spectrometry

Mepiquat (MQ) and chlormequat (CQ) are two main food contaminants that could be naturally present in various animal and plant foods due to heat treatments. Cocoa and its derivative products seem to be a matrix inclined, for both chemical characteristics and production technologies, to the formation of MQ and CQ. In this study, exploiting the selectivity and sensitivity of IC-HRMS, a new reliable analytical method was developed and validated for MQ and CQ quantification. The LOD of the method was set at 1.9 lg kg 1 for both CQ and MQ, and the linearity was defined from 6.25 to 625 lg kg 1 . Average recoveries, at 2 lg L 1 , were 96.5% and 97.5% for CQ and MQ, respectively, while precision as repeatability (RSDr%) was 2.3% and 5.1% respectively. Subsequently, a laboratory-scale experiment was conducted to assess, for the first time, the actual risk of MQ and CQ formation, confirming in cocoa products the presence of MQ at detectable concentration after 55 min at 180 °C, approximately 8 lg kg 1 for cocoa and 7 lg kg 1 for chips. However, the investigation of a wide variety of commercial cocoa and nuts products has fortunately ruled out the presence of such contaminants at detectable concentration

Sonic hedgehog medulloblastoma cancer stem cells mirnome and transcriptome highlight novel functional networks

Molecular classification has improved the knowledge of medulloblastoma (MB), the most common malignant brain tumour in children, however current treatments cause severe side effects in patients. Cancer stem cells (CSCs) have been described in MB and represent a sub population characterised by self-renewal and the ability to generate tumour cells, thus representing the reservoir of the tumour. To investigate molecular pathways that characterise this sub population, we isolated CSCs from Sonic Hedgehog Medulloblastoma (SHH MB) arisen in Patched 1 (Ptch1) heterozygous mice, and performed miRNA-and mRNA-sequencing. Comparison of the miRNA-sequencing of SHH MB CSCs with that obtained from cerebellar Neural Stem Cells (NSCs), allowed us to obtain a SHH MB CSC miRNA differential signature. Pathway enrichment analysis in SHH MB CSCs mirnome and transcriptome was performed and revealed a series of enriched pathways. We focused on the putative targets of the SHH MB CSC miRNAs that were involved in the enriched pathways of interest, namely pathways in cancer, PI3k-Akt pathway and protein processing in endoplasmic reticulum pathway. In silico analysis was performed in SHH MB patients and identified several genes, whose expression was associated with worse overall survival of SHH MB patients. This study provides novel candidates whose functional role should be further investigated in SHH MB

Current exposure of Italian women of reproductive age to PFOS and PFOA: a human biomonitoring study

Perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) concentrations were determined in serum samples collected in 2011-2012 from 549 nulliparous Italian women of reproductive age who resided in six different Italian Regions. Assessment of exposure to perfluorinated compounds was part of a large human biomonitoring study (Project Life Plus "Womenbiopop") that aimed at examining the exposure of women of reproductive age to priority organic pollutants. The median concentrations of PFOS and PFOA were 2.43, and 1.55ngg-1, respectively. Significant differences in the concentrations of both compounds were observed among the six Regions. Women from central Italy had the highest levels of both compounds, followed by women from northern Italy, and southern Italy. No differences in the PFOS concentrations were found between women from urban/industrial areas and women from rural areas, whereas the levels of PFOA were significantly higher in women residing in urban/industrial areas than in women residing in rural areas. Taken together, the observed concentrations confirm that the overall exposure of the Italian population is among the lowest observed in industrialized countries. A downward temporal trend in exposure was observed for both compounds when comparing the results from the present study with those assessed in a study conducted in 2008

Challenges to evidence synthesis and identification of data gaps in human biomonitoring

The increasing number of human biomonitoring (HBM) studies undertaken in recent decades has brought to light the need to harmonise procedures along all phases of the study, including sampling, data collection and analytical methods to allow data comparability. The first steps towards harmonisation are the identification and collation of HBM methodological information of existing studies and data gaps. Systematic literature reviews and meta-analyses have been traditionally put at the top of the hierarchy of evidence, being increasingly applied to map available evidence on health risks linked to exposure to chemicals. However, these methods mainly capture peer-reviewed articles, failing to comprehensively identify other important, unpublished sources of information that are pivotal to gather a complete map of the produced evidence in the area of HBM. Within the framework of the European Human Biomonitoring Initiative (HBM4EU) initiative—a project that joins 30 countries, 29 from Europe plus Israel, the European Environment Agency and the European Commission—a comprehensive work of data triangulation has been made to identify existing HBM studies and data gaps across countries within the consortium. The use of documentary analysis together with an up-to-date platform to fulfil this need and its implications for research and practice are discussed