Natalia Szczepańska

Revision of Biological Methods for Determination of EDC Presence and Their Endocrine Potential

Endocrine-disrupting compounds (EDC) are chemicals responsible for disturbances in the hormonal balance of organisms. This group of chemicals includes both egzogenic and endogenic substances or their mixtures that impact functioning of natural hormones in organisms. In the available literature one can find information on the application of chromatographic and related techniques in the analysis of environmental samples for detection, identification, and quantitation of a wide spectrum of chemicals posing endocrine properties. On the other hand, more and more biotests are being developed to determine endocrine potency of environmental samples due to development of genetic engineering methods and specific detection methods of cells’ response to the action of particular chemicals of interest. This article presents revisions of the most novel methods for this potency determination with application to biological elements.

New Polymeric Materials for Solid Phase Extraction

ABSTRACT Solid phase extraction (SPE) is a popular sample preparation technique, which can be applied directly in gas–solid phase and liquid–solid phase, or indirectly to solid samples by using, e.g., thermodesorption with subsequent chromatographic analysis. Although SPE can be described as a physical extraction process involving a liquid phase and a solid phase, the increased use of packed sorbent formats seems to have led to a bias toward packed sorbent SPE devices. Without any doubt, the heart of the SPE technique is the sorbent material as it has a direct influence on the selectivity, sorptive capacity, and the format or the configuration of the resultant SPE device. There will always be a need for new sorbent materials, and therefore, it is imperative to focus research efforts on versatile sorbent fabrication techniques that could address current and anticipated challenges. Various polymeric materials have been developed and implemented in everyday life. They are also extensively used in analytical chemistry. This review provides an updated summary of the most important features of polymeric sorptive materials used at the stage of preparing samples for analysis. The application of each new polymeric sorbent material is discussed in detail. Moreover, the comparison between these materials is done.

Application of chemometric techniques in studies of toxicity of selected commercially available products for infants and children

The goal of the present study is to assess the impact of the experimental conditions for extraction procedures (time of extraction, thermal treatment and type of extraction media) as applied to several baby and infant products checked for their possible ecotoxicological response when tested by various ecotoxicity tests (Microtox®, Ostracodtoxkit F™ and Xenoscreen YES/YAS™). The systems under consideration are multidimensional by nature and, therefore, the appropriate assessment approach was intelligent data analysis (chemometrics). Hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) and principal component analysis (PCA) were selected as reliable data mining methods for the interpretation of the ecotoxicity data. We show that the different experimental conditions have a significant impact on the ecotoxicity levels observed, especially those measured by Microtox® and Ostracodtoxkit F™ tests. The time of contact proves to be a very significant factor for all extraction media and ecotoxicity test procedures. The present study is a pioneering effort to offer a specific expert approach for analysing links between the type of test measurement methodology and imposed experimental conditions to mimic real-life circumstances in the use of baby and infant products.

Endocrine Disrupting Compounds – Problems and Challenges

In this chapter, information about some of the estrogenic compounds and their environmental fate and biological influence can be found. Special attention is paid to the review of the analytical approaches used at the stages of detection and determi‐ nation of Endocrine Disrupting Compounds (EDCs) in the environmental samples. Also, a brief characterization of both cellular and non-cellular bioassays is presented. The discovery of micropollutants occurring in the environment resulted in new methodologies being put into the analytical practice. These methodologies are developed in two different directions. The first is based on methodological solutions designed to detect, identify, and determine xenobiotics that occur in various environ‐ mental samples. For this purpose, instrumental methods such as gas and liquid chromatography with mass spectrometry detection are usually used. The second approach is to put into the analytical practice the new bioanalytical methodologies. These methodologies allow the estimation of the sample endocrine potential, but they do not provide the information about which of the sample ingredient is responsible for causing the toxic effect. These results can be the basis for estimating the endocrine potential of the environment exhibited by certain species. Moreover, bioanalytical techniques may be supplementary to the techniques of quantitative and qualitative determination of EDCs.

Modeling and MANOVA studies on toxicity and endocrine potential of packaging materials exposed to different extraction schemes

Abstract The stability of the linings of packaging that is in contact with the goods stored has been of major concern during decades of the development of packaging materials. In this work, an attempt was undertaken to assess the applicability of using two bioassays (Microtox® and XenoScreen YES/YAS) in estimating the stability of packaging (cans, caps, multilayer material) and the impact of their degradation on the toxicity of some simulated media. The assessment of the impact of packaging storage conditions (temperature, disinfection, preservation, extracting and washing solvents) was planned and performed with i) regression modeling of the experimental effects on the ecotoxicity readings, ii) ANOVA and MANOVA estimation of the experimental conditions as significant factors affecting the toxicity results and iii) FTIR analysis of the packages. It is shown that the effects of temperature and extraction solvents could be quantitatively assessed by the agreement between all methods applied. It can be stated that temperature and acidity as well as the alcohol content in the sensitive media have the greatest impact on the toxicity of the extract and thus on the stability of the internal lining and the extractability of xenobiotics. HighlightsSimultaneous assessment of the impact of treatment conditions on packages ecotoxicity.Checking of the impact of temperature and extracting solvents on endocrine potential of packages.Comparison of the package lining spectra before and after extraction.Ecotoxicity parameters as a tool in packages lining stability assessment.

Assessment of ecotoxicity and total volatile organic compound (TVOC) emissions from food and children's toy products

The development of new methods for identifying a broad spectrum of analytes, as well as highly selective tools to provide the most accurate information regarding the processes and relationships in the world, has been an area of interest for researchers for many years. The information obtained with these tools provides valuable data to complement existing knowledge but, above all, to identify and determine previously unknown hazards. Recently, attention has been paid to the migration of xenobiotics from the surfaces of various everyday objects and the resulting impacts on human health. Since children are among those most vulnerable to health consequences, one of the main subjects of interest is the migration of low-molecular-weight compounds from toys and products intended for children. This migration has become a stimulus for research aimed at determining the degree of release of compounds from popular commercially available chocolate/toy sets. One of main objectives of this research was to determine the impact of time on the ecotoxicity (with Vibrio fischeri bioluminescent bacteria) of extracts of products intended for children and to assess the correlation with total volatile organic compound emissions using basic chemometric methods. The studies on endocrine potential (with XenoScreen YES/YAS) of the extracts and showed that compounds released from the studied objects (including packaging foils, plastic capsules storing toys, most of toys studied and all chocolate samples) exhibit mostly androgenic antagonistic behavior while using artificial saliva as extraction medium increased the impact observed. The impact of time in most cases was positive one and increased with prolonging extraction time. The small-scale stationary environmental test chambers - μ-CTE™ 250 system was employed to perform the studies aimed at determining the profile of total volatile organic compounds (TVOCs) emissions. Due to this it was possible to state that objects from which the greatest amounts of contaminants are released are plastic containers (with emission rate falling down from 3273 to 2280 ng/g of material at 6 h of conditioning in elevated temperature).

Recent advances in assessing xenobiotics migrating from packaging material – A review

Migration of potentially toxic xenobiotics and their transformation products from packaging materials needs continuous monitoring efforts. This task requires utilizing both instrumental and biological methods as more and more novel materials reach market every year to serve consumers and reduce production costs. Unfortunately, these materials very often sneak past our legal regulations on their composition and emission of contaminants due to contact with the materials or products stored. For these reasons, more and more novel, holistic and multi-tier approaches must be elaborated to uncompromisingly assure safety of these materials to living creatures. In the work presented, a review of methods enabling performing studies on extraction, leaching, qualitative and quantitative determination of xenobiotics and their combined effect on certain biological endpoints is given. Additionally, a basic approach guiding end-users and scientists to elaborate such studies is presented in the form of a basic scheme, and advantages and disadvantages of these methods are summarized.