Transfusion-transmitted infections

Although the risk of transfusion-transmitted infections today is lower than ever, the supply of safe blood products remains subject to contamination with known and yet to be identified human pathogens. Only continuous improvement and implementation of donor selection, sensitive screening tests and effective inactivation procedures can ensure the elimination, or at least reduction, of the risk of acquiring transfusion transmitted infections. In addition, ongoing education and up-to-date information regarding infectious agents that are potentially transmitted via blood components is necessary to promote the reporting of adverse events, an important component of transfusion transmitted disease surveillance. Thus, the collaboration of all parties involved in transfusion medicine, including national haemovigilance systems, is crucial for protecting a secure blood product supply from known and emerging blood-borne pathogens

Quantitative methods for food allergens: a review.

The quantitative detection of allergens in the food chain is a strategic health objective as the prevalence of allergy continues to rise. Food allergenicity is caused by proteins either in their native form or in forms resulting from food processing. Progress in mass spectrometry greatly opened up the field of proteomics. These advances are now available for the detection and the quantification of traces of allergenic proteins in complex mixtures, and complete the set of biological tests used until now, such as ELISA or PCR. We review methods classified according to their ability to simultaneously quantify and identify allergenic proteins and underline major advances in the mass-spectrometric methods

The Use of Ion Mobility Mass Spectrometry for Isomer Composition Determination Extracted from Se-Rich Yeast

peer reviewedThe isomer ratio determination of a selenium-containing metabolite produced by Se-rich yeast was performed. Electrospray Ionization and Ion Mobility Mass Spectrometry (IM-MS) were unsuccessfully used in order to resolve the isomers according to their Collisional Cross Section (CCS) difference. The isomer ratio determination of 2,3-dihydroxypropionylselenocystathionine was performed after multidimensional liquid chromatography preconcentration from a water extract of Se-rich yeast using preparative size exclusion, anion exchange and capillary reverse phase columns coupled to IM-MS. 4’-nitrobenzo-15-crown-5 ether, a Selective Shift Reagent (SSR), was added after the last chromatographic dimension in order to specifically increase the CCS of one of the isomers by the formation of a stable host-guest system with the crown-ether . Both isomers were consequently fully resolved by IM-MS and the relative ratio of the isomers was determined: 11-13% and 87-89%. The present data compared favorably with literature to support the analytical strategy despite the lack of authentic standard for method validation. In addition, computational chemistry methods were successfully applied to design the SSR and to support the experimental data