Comparison of xenobiotic metabolizing enzyme activities in ex vivo human skin and reconstructed human skin models from SkinEthic.

Skin function is not limited to a physical barrier. According to its total surface area, it is also considered as an extra-hepatic metabolizing organ. In vitro engineered human skins have been developed to replace limited ex vivo normal human skin samples (NHS).

Sensitization to p-amino aromatic compounds: Study of the covalent binding of 2,5-dimethyl-p-benzoquinonediimine to a model peptide by electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry.

To understand the hapten-protein complex formation in the context of skin contact allergy to p-amino aromatic derivatives, 2,5-dimethyl-p-benzoquinonediimine was used as a model compound to study the reactivity of p-benzoquinonediimines, first oxidation intermediates of allergenic p-amino aromatic compounds, toward a model peptide containing naturally occurring and potential reactive amino acids. LC-MS analysis, together with electrospray ionization MS/MS, was used for the determination of amino acid selectivity by studying the chemical modifications induced on the peptide due to covalent binding of the p-benzoquinonediimine. Results reported in this paper indicated that 2,5-dimethyl-p-benzoquinonediimine reacted with the epsilon-NH(2) group of lysine to first form a covalent adduct of the Schiff's base kind.

Analysis of ancient Greco-Roman cosmetic materials using laser desorption ionization and electrospray ionization mass spectrometry.

Microsamples of pink cosmetic powders from the Greco-Roman period were analyzed using two complementary analytical approaches for identification of the colouring agents (lake pigments originally manufactured from madder plants with an inert binder, usually a metallic salt) present in the samples. The first technique was a methanolic acidic extraction of the archaeological samples with an additional ethyl acetate extraction of the anthraquinone-type colouring agents which were identified using high performance liquid chromatography coupled to electrospray ionization with high resolution mass spectrometry (LC-ESI-HRMS), and the second was direct analysis of a microsample by laser desorption ionization-mass spectrometry (LDI-MS). The latter technique is well suited when the quantity of samples is very low.