Publications by authors named "Andrea Estevez-Danta"

Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) has become an invaluable tool for tracking the evolution of use or exposure of/to numerous substances. Bisphenols, commonly utilized in manufacturing plastic goods, have been categorized as endocrine disrupting chemicals, underscoring the critical need for real-time data on their local-level exposure to safeguard public health. In this study, we have developed a novel analytical method and WBE framework for the assessment of population-level exposure to bisphenol A (BPA) and its most prominent substitutes, bisphenols F and S (BPF and BPS), through the determination their Phase II metabolites in wastewater by WBE.

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Article Synopsis
  • * A study examined how 3-MMC is metabolized in the human body using liver samples and human matrices like plasma, urine, and hair, identifying three main metabolites of the substance.
  • * This research is significant as it confirmed the presence of the metabolites in a large sample set, suggesting their potential use as biomarkers for monitoring 3-MMC usage in various contexts.
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Bisphenols are widely used as monomers and additives in plastic production. Thus, bisphenol A (BPA) and its most prominent substitutes have been detected in many environmental and human samples. This study proposes an online solid-phase extraction analytical methodology coupled to liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry for the determination of six bisphenols (BPA and bisphenols F (BPF), S (BPS), AF (BPAF), B (BPB), and E (BPE)) in urine samples as an efficient and automated methodology.

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Tris (1-chloro-2-propyl) phosphate (TCIPP) is one of the major organophosphate flame retardants present in the indoor and outdoor environment. Knowledge of biotransformation pathways is important to elucidate potential bioavailability and toxicity of TCIPP and to identify relevant biomarkers. This study aimed to identify TCIPP metabolites through human metabolism assays and finally to confirm these findings in urine samples from an occupationally exposed population to propose new biomarkers to accurately monitor exposure to TCIPP.

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The COVID-19 pandemic spread rapidly worldwide in the year 2020, which was initially restrained by drastic mobility restrictions. In this work, we investigated the use of illicit drugs (amphetamine, methamphetamine, ecstasy, cocaine and cannabis), and licit substances of abuse (alcohol and tobacco) during the earlier months (March-July 2020) of the pandemic restrictions in four Spanish (Bilbao and its metropolitan area, Vitoria-Gasteiz, Castellón and Santiago de Compostela) and two Portuguese (Porto and Vila do Conde) locations by wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE). The results show that no methamphetamine was detected in any of the locations monitored, while amphetamine use was only detectable in the two locations from the Basque Country (Bilbao and its metropolitan area and Vitoria-Gasteiz), with high estimated average usage rates (700-930 mg day 1000 inhabitant).

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Amphetamine (AMP), methamphetamine (MAMP) and 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) occur in wastewater not only as a result of illicit consumption, but also, in some cases, from prescription drug use or by direct drug disposal into the sewage system. Enantiomeric profiling of these chiral drugs could give more insight into the origin of their occurrence. In this manuscript, a new analytical methodology for the enantiomeric analysis of amphetamine-like substances in wastewater has been developed.

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Data obtained from wastewater analysis can provide rapid and complementary insights in illicit drug consumption at community level. Within Europe, Spain is an important country of transit of both cocaine and cannabis. The quantity of seized drugs and prevalence of their use rank Spain at the top of Europe.

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Plasticizers are chemical compounds used in the production of flexible plastics for a large variety of applications. They are present in most of the environments and, hence, we are highly exposed to them via several routes (ingestion, inhalation, etc). Due to the endocrine disruption potential of some of these chemicals and the unknown toxicological effects of their alternatives, assessing human exposure to these contaminants is an issue of emerging concern.

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This work provides a new analytical method for the determination of cocaine, its metabolites benzoylecgonine and cocaethylene, the pyrolytic products anhydroecgonine and anhydroecgonine methyl ester, and the pharmaceutical levamisole in wastewater. Samples were solid-phase extracted and extracts analyzed by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry using, for the first time in the illicit drug field, a stationary phase that combines reversed-phase and weak cation-exchange functionalities. The overall method performance was satisfactory, with limits of detection below 1 ng/L, relative standard deviations below 21%, and percentages of recovery between 93% and 121%.

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