Detection of Bioactive Exometabolites Produced by the Filamentous Marine Cyanobacterium Geitlerinema sp.

Marine cyanobacteria are noted for their ability to excrete metabolites with biotic properties. This paper focuses on such exometabolites obtained from the culture of the marine filamentous cyanobacterium Geitlerinema sp. strain, their purification and subsequent analyses. By this means the recoveries of the active compounds, a prerequisite for properly determining their concentration, are quantified here for the first time. We demonstrate a new procedure using Amberlite XAD-1180 resin in combination with the eluent isopropanol for extraction of the culture media and gas chromatography as simplified chemical analysis. This procedure reduced necessary bacteria cultivation time (from 150 to 21 days) at low volumes of culture media (300 mL) required for identification of two selected bioactive compounds: 4,4′-dihydroxybiphenyl and harmane

Special Issue “Pharmaceutical Residues in the Environment”

Pharmaceuticals, due to their pseudo-persistence and biological activity as well as their extensive use in human and veterinary medicine, are a class of environmental contaminants that is of emerging concern [...

The Identification of Cotton Fibers Dyed with Reactive Dyes for Forensic Purposes

Some of the most common microtraces that are currently collected at crime scenes are fragments of single fibers. The perpetrator leaves them at a crime scene or takes them away, for example, on their clothing or body. In turn, the microscopic dimensions of such traces mean that the perpetrator does not notice them and therefore usually does not take action to remove them. Cotton and polyester fibers dyed by reactive and dispersion dyes, respectively, are very popular within clothing products, and they are hidden among microtraces at the scene of a crime. In our recently published review paper, we summarized the possibilities for the identification of disperse dyes of polyester fibers for forensic purposes. In this review, we are concerned with cotton fibers dyed with reactive dyes. Cotton fibers are natural ones that cannot easily be distinguished on the basis of morphological features. Consequently, their color and consequently the dye composition are often their only characteristics. The presented methods for the identification of reactive dyes could be very interesting not only for forensic laboratories, but also for scientists working in food, cosmetics or pharmaceutical/medical sciences

Biomedical Activity of Chitin/Chitosan Based Materials—Influence of Physicochemical Properties Apart from Molecular Weight and Degree of N-Acetylation

The physicochemical nature of chitin and chitosan, which influences the biomedical activity of these compounds, is strongly related to the source of chitin and the conditions of the chitin/chitosan production process. Apart from widely described key factors such as weight-averaged molecular weight (MW) and degree of N-acetylation (DA), other physicochemical parameters like polydispersity (MW/MN), crystallinity or the pattern of acetylation (PA) have to be taken into consideration. From the biological point of view, these parameters affect a very important factor—the solubility of chitin and chitosan in water and organic solvents. The physicochemical properties of chitosan solutions can be controlled by manipulating solution conditions (temperature, pH, ionic strength, concentration, solvent). The degree of substitution of the hydroxyl and the amino groups or the degree of quaternization of the amino groups also influence the mechanical and biological properties of chitosan samples. Finally, a considerable research effort has been directed towards developing safe and efficient chitin/chitosan-based products because many factors, like the size of nanoparticles, can determine the biomedical characteristics of medicinal products. The influence of these factors on the biomedical activity of chitin/chitosan-based products is presented in this report in more detail

The Identification of Polyester Fibers Dyed with Disperse Dyes for Forensic Purposes

In forensic laboratories, the most commonly analyzed microtraces are microscopic fragments of single fibers. One of the main goals of the examination of fragments of fibers a few millimeters long is to determine their characteristic physicochemical properties and compare them with fibers originating from a known source (e.g., a suspect’s clothes). The color and dyes of fiber microtraces play an important role in their research and evaluation, being analyzed by means of microscopic, spectroscopic, and chromatographic methods. The results of examinations conducted with the use of spectroscopic techniques might be ambiguous due to overlapping bands of absorption and the transmission and dispersion of electromagnetic radiation corresponding to the specific chemical structure of the fibers and their dyes. For this reason, it is very important to improve currently available spectroscopic methods and/or to propose new ones that allow evidential materials to be analyzed in a much more reliable way. In this review, the possibility of the use of chromatographic techniques with different detection systems for such analyses is underlined. This review covers the different analytical methods used in the forensic analysis of polyester fibers dyed with disperse dyes. Polyester fibers occupy the first position among synthetic fibers in their use for a variety of purposes, and disperse dyes are commonly applied for dyeing them

Zastosowanie chromatografii gazowej do oznaczania pozostałości farmaceutyków w próbkach klinicznych, kosmetycznych, żywieniowych i środowiskowych w świetle wymagań zrównoważonego rozwoju

The sustainable development of human activities is directly related to the protection of the environment by lowering the anthropogenic stress. Pharmaceuticals – due to their growing consumption (use in medicine, veterinary, animal production, cosmetics) and their incomplete removal in wastewater treatment plants – are classified as a group of new and rapidly emerging pollutants which have been proven to have a negative impact onto water organisms. In order to ensure the proper protection of human health and the environment there is an urgent necessity of determining pharmaceuticals in clinical, cosmetic, food and environmental samples. Gas (GC) and high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) are valuable techniques for such determination, especially when they are coupled with mass spectrometry (GC-MS; LC-MS) or tandem mass spectrometry (GC-MS/MS; LC-MS/MS). The purpose of this paper is to present an analysis of sustainability features of analytical techniques in the light of necessity to determine trace amounts of pharmaceuticals in the aforementioned different matrices. Using the Delphi method we performed an analysis of the key sources of the competitive advantages of the application of GC and GC-MS techniques for determining the pharmaceutical residue in clinical, cosmetic, food and environmental samples – compared to techniques based on HPLC or LC-MS. The analysis covered the following areas: (i) the features of the technique, (ii) the price, and (iii) the applicability in various sectors of economy.Rozwój zrównoważony jest bezpośrednio związany z ochroną środowiska, w tym z obniżeniem stresu antropogenicznego. W związku z rosnącym zużyciem farmaceutyków w wielu sektorach gospodarki, w tym między innymi w medycynie, weterynarii, sektorze farmaceutycznym, kosmetycznym oraz ich niepełnym usuwaniem przez oczyszczalnie ścieków, pozostałości farmaceutyków docierają do środowiska, gdzie mogą oddziaływać na organizmy tam bytujące. W celu zapewnienia właściwej ochrony zdrowia ludzkiego oraz środowiska niezbędnym jest oznaczanie pozostałości farmaceutyków w próbkach klinicznych, kosmetycznych, żywieniowych oraz środowiskowych. Techniki oparte na chromatografii takie jak: chromatografia gazowa (GC - Gas Chromatography), wysokosprawna chromatografia cieczowa (HPLC - High Performance Liquid Chromatography) są szczególnie przydatne w oznaczaniu farmaceutyków w szczególności, kiedy techniki te są sprzężone ze spektrometrią mas (GC-MS, LC-MS) lub tandemową spektrometrią mas (GC-MS/MS; LC-MS/MS). Celem niniejszego artykułu jest analiza przewag konkurencyjnych techniki, jaką jest chromatografia gazowa w kontekście wymagań zrównoważonego rozwoju. Wykorzystując metodę delficką przenalizowano użyteczność i przewagi chromatografii gazowej w oznaczaniu pozostałości farmaceutyków w różnych próbkach - w porównaniu do technik opartych na HPLC oraz HPLC-MS. Na podstawie przeprowadzonych badań na rynku polskim, którymi objęto 277 podmiotów wykorzystujących w swojej działalności techniki analityczne, przedstawiono możliwości zastosowania techniki GC w poszczególnych sektorach gospodarki