Correction for 'Paper spray mass spectrometry utilizing Teslin® substrate for rapid detection of lipid metabolite changes during COVID-19 infection' by Imesha W. De Silva , , 2020, , 5725-5732, DOI: 10.1039/D0AN01074J.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSilver nanoparticles (AgNPs) have become increasingly popular in the biomedical field over the last few decades due to its proven antibacterial property. Previous scientific studies have reported that one of the major organs responsible for detoxification of AgNPs is the liver. The liver is also the primary organ responsible for secretion of angiotensinogen (AGT), a key signaling molecule involved in the renin-angiotensin system (RAS), which plays an important role in maintaining cardiac output and vascular pressure.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFentanyl and its related synthetic analogs have recently become more readily available as a growing threat to public safety, such as pain relief and anesthetics. Sources of fentanyl are more likely to be illicitly manufactured than pharmaceutically manufactured and are often laced with other opioids, which ultimately increases the potency of fentanyl and results in an increased number of overdose deaths. The methods used to detect these compounds safely and quickly are of high interest due to their extreme potency.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSilver nanoparticles (AgNPs) have become crucial players in the field of medicine and various other industries. AgNPs have a wide array of applications, which includes production of electronic goods, cosmetics, synthesis of dyes, and printing inks, as well as targeted delivery of drugs to specialized cells inside the body. Even though humans readily come in contact with these particles, the organ-specific accumulation and resulting mechanisms of toxicity induced by inhaled AgNPs are still under investigation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMetallic nanoparticles (NPs) have been accepted for various applications ranging from cosmetics to medicine. However, no method has been established in the scientific community that is capable of analyzing various metals, sizes, and levels of exposures without the concern of background chemical contaminations. We present here a system utilizing soft-landing ion mobility (SLIM) exposures of laser ablated metallic clusters capable of operating pressures of reduced vacuum (1 Torr) up to ambient (760 Torr) in the presence of a buffer gas.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe SARS-CoV-2 virus is known as the causal agent for the current COVID-19 global pandemic. The majority of COVID-19 patients develop acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), while some experience a cytokine storm effect, which is considered as one of the leading causes of patient mortality. Lipids are known to be involved in the various stages of the lifecycle of a virus functioning as receptors or co-receptors that controls viral propagation inside the host cell.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSeeds of the desert shrub, jojoba (), are an abundant, renewable source of liquid wax esters, which are valued additives in cosmetic products and industrial lubricants. Jojoba is relegated to its own taxonomic family, and there is little genetic information available to elucidate its phylogeny. Here, we report the high-quality, 887-Mb genome of jojoba assembled into 26 chromosomes with 23,490 protein-coding genes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis study focuses on the chemical route sourcing of illicitly produced Δ9-Tetrahydrocannabinol (Δ9-THC) via the acid-catalyzed cannabidiol isomerization reaction. Each of the acid-catalyzed reactions used acids that are readily available for the general population such as battery acid, muriatic acid, and vinegar. After the acid-catalyzed isomerization was complete, an analysis using Liquid Chromatography-coupled-Mass Spectrometry (LC-MS)-coupled-ion mobility to confirm all synthetic impurities in the sample was conducted.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDirect analyte-probed nanoextraction (DAPNe) is a technique that allows extraction of drug and endogenous compounds from a discrete location on a tissue sample using a nano capillary filled with solvent. Samples can be extracted from spot diameters as low as 6 μm. Studies previously undertaken by our group have shown that the technique can provide good precision (5%) for analyzing drug molecules in 150 μm diameter areas of homogenized tissue, provided an internal standard is sprayed on to the tissue prior to analysis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMethods Mol Biol
December 2020
The ability to discriminately analyze the chemical constituents of single cells and organelles is highly sought after and necessary to establish true biomarkers. Some major challenges of individual cell analysis include requirement and expenditure of a large sample of cells as well as extensive extraction and separation techniques. Here, we describe methods to perform individual cell and organelle extractions of both tissues and cells in vitro using nanomanipulation coupled to mass spectrometry.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe constantly growing field of True One Cell (TOC) analysis has provided important information on the direct chemical composition of various cells and cellular components. Since the heterogeneity of individual cells has been established, more researchers are interested in the chemical differences between individual cells; TOC is the only form of analysis that can provide this information. This has resulted in the constant development of new technologies and methods.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFZebrafish thrombocytes are similar to mammalian platelets. Mammals have young platelets (also called reticulated platelets) and mature platelets. Likewise, zebrafish have 2 populations of thrombocytes; one is DiI-C (DiI) (DP), and the other is DiI (DN).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSince their inception, mass spectrometers have played a pivotal role in the direction and application of synthetic chemical research. The ability to develop new instrumentation to solve current analytical challenges in this area has always been at the heart of mass spectrometry, although progress has been slow at times. Herein, we briefly review the history of how mass spectrometry has been used to approach challenges in organic chemistry, how new developments in portable instrumentation and ambient ionization have been used to open novel areas of research, and how current techniques have the ability to expand on our knowledge of synthetic mechanisms and kinetics.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFImpurity profiling has been used as a useful tool for analyzing nearly every drug class currently known on the illicit market. Impurities present within seized samples have the potential to determine source of origin, route of synthesis used, as well as provide a useful clue into the potential reaction mechanisms that are present for each synthetic procedure. Perhaps the most well studied of these impurity profiles exists for methamphetamine, including information to more than one route of synthesis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe cellular metabolome is considered to be a representation of cellular phenotype and cellular response to changes to internal or external events. Methods to expand the coverage of the expansive physiochemical properties that makeup the metabolome currently utilize multi-step extractions and chromatographic separations prior to chemical detection, leading to lengthy analysis times. In this study, a single-step procedure for the extraction and separation of a sample using a micro-capillary as a separatory funnel to achieve analyte partitioning within an organic/aqueous immiscible solvent system is described.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFLaser ablation has been applied to redacted documents, where the text has been concealed by other ink. This technique strips the redacting ink revealing the text that was once redacted. Once removed, a nanomanipulation technique is used to extract the ink of the underlying text where mass spectrometry is then implemented to analyze its ink chemistry.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe present an analysis of ambient benzene, toluene, and xylene isomers in the Eagle Ford shale region of southern Texas. In situ air quality measurements using membrane inlet mobile mass spectrometry revealed ambient benzene and toluene concentrations as high as 1000 and 5000 parts-per-billion, respectively, originating from specific sub-processes on unconventional oil and gas well pad sites. The detection of highly variant contamination events attributable to natural gas flaring units, condensate tanks, compressor units, and hydrogen sulfide scavengers indicates that mechanical inefficiencies, and not necessarily the inherent nature of the extraction process as a whole, result in the release of these compounds into the environment.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn the United States, all food products have to be regulated to inform the consumers of the ingredients contained within. Some ingredients are not included on the label and yet are still found in the products. Presented is a Raman imaging technique for rapid, nondestructive, and spatially relevant localization of adulterants in powders.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBorder control for homeland security faces major challenges worldwide due to chemical threats from national and/or international terrorism as well as organized crime. A wide range of technologies and systems with threat detection and monitoring capabilities has emerged to identify the chemical footprint associated with these illegal activities. This review paper investigates artificial sniffing technologies used as chemical sensors for point-of-use chemical analysis, especially during border security applications.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe recent expansion of natural gas and oil extraction using unconventional oil and gas development (UD) practices such as horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing has raised questions about the potential for environmental impacts. Prior research has focused on evaluations of air and water quality in particular regions without explicitly considering temporal variation; thus, little is known about the potential effects of UD activity on the environment over longer periods of time. Here, we present an assessment of private well water quality in an area of increasing UD activity over a period of 13months.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAbiotic stresses such as drought, heat or salinity are a major cause of yield loss worldwide. Recent studies revealed that the acclimation of plants to a combination of different environmental stresses is unique and cannot be directly deduced from studying the response of plants to each of the different stresses applied individually. Here we report on the response of Arabidopsis thaliana to a combination of salt and heat stress using transcriptome analysis, physiological measurements and mutants deficient in abscisic acid, salicylic acid, jasmonic acid or ethylene signaling.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe ability to detect atmospheric effluent from clandestine methamphetamine manufacture is a useful tool for law enforcement. A membrane inlet mass spectrometer is mounted onto an all-electric drive capable hybrid vehicle that samples the atmosphere while in motion. Attributing a latitude and longitude to each spectrum collected, unique chemical fingerprints from clandestine manufacture are then mapped.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe describe a novel technique combining precise organelle microextraction with deposition and matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI) for a rapid, minimally invasive mass spectrometry (MS) analysis of single organelles from living cells. A dual-positioner nanomanipulator workstation was utilized for both extraction of organelle content and precise co-deposition of analyte and matrix solution for MALDI-direct organelle mass spectrometry (DOMS) analysis. Here, the triacylglycerol (TAG) profiles of single lipid droplets from 3T3-L1 adipocytes were acquired and results validated with nanoelectrospray ionization (NSI) MS.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA custom set of ion volumes was manufactured in order to investigate the gain and byproducts using hydrogen as a buffer gas following electron ionization in a quadrupole ion trap mass spectrometer as compared with helium. Analyses of illicit drugs such as cocaine, codeine, and oxycodone, and explosives such as TNT, RDX, and HMTD with ion volume exit orifices of 1mm, 2mm, 4mm, 6mm, 8mm and 10mm were performed using GC/MS. Strong similarities between hydrogen and helium spectra of illicit drugs and explosives provide evidence that hydrogen can be used effectively as a buffer gas in an ion trap mass spectrometer.
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