Evaluation of ionic liquids supported on silica as a sorbent for fully automated online solid-phase extraction with LC-MS determination of sulfonamides in bovine milk samples.

Sulfonamides are antibiotics widely used in the treatment of diseases in dairy cattle. However, their indiscriminate use for disease control may lead to their presence in tissues and milk and their determination requires a sample preparation step as part of an analytical approach. Among the several sample preparation techniques available, those based upon the use of sorptive materials have been widely employed.

An automated and self-cleaning nano liquid chromatography mass spectrometry platform featuring an open tubular multi-hole crystal fiber solid phase extraction column and an open tubular separation column.

An open tubular (OT) sample preparation/separation platform was developed. A multi-channel polymer layer open tubular (mPLOT) solid phase extraction (SPE) column was prepared by wall-coating the 126 channels (8μm inner diameter (ID) each) of a crystal fiber capillary with an organic polymer, namely poly(styrene-co-octadecene-co-divinylbenzene) (PS-OD-DVB). The mPLOT SPE was coupled on-line with a 10μm×2m poly(styrene-co-divinylbenzene) (PS-DVB) OT liquid chromatography column with nanospray mass spectrometry (OTLC-MS).

Kisspeptin modulates sexual and emotional brain processing in humans.

Background: Sex, emotion, and reproduction are fundamental and tightly entwined aspects of human behavior. At a population level in humans, both the desire for sexual stimulation and the desire to bond with a partner are important precursors to reproduction. However, the relationships between these processes are incompletely understood.

New materials for sample preparation techniques in bioanalysis.

The analysis of biological samples is a complex and difficult task owing to two basic and complementary issues: the high complexity of most biological matrices and the need to determine minute quantities of active substances and contaminants in such complex sample. To succeed in this endeavor samples are usually subject to three steps of a comprehensive analytical methodological approach: sample preparation, analytes isolation (usually utilizing a chromatographic technique) and qualitative/quantitative analysis (usually with the aid of mass spectrometric tools). Owing to the complex nature of bio-samples, and the very low concentration of the target analytes to be determined, selective sample preparation techniques is mandatory in order to overcome the difficulties imposed by these two constraints.

Evolution in miniaturized column liquid chromatography instrumentation and applications: An overview.

The purpose of this article is to underline the miniaturized LC instrumental system and describe the evolution of commercially available systems by discussing their advantages and drawbacks. Nowadays, there are already many miniaturized LC systems available with a great variety of pump design, interface and detectors as well as efficient columns technologies and reduced connections devices. The solvent delivery systems are able to drive the mobile phase without flow splitters and promote gradient elution using either dual piston reciprocating or syringe-type pumps.

Unified chromatography: Fundamentals, instrumentation and applications.

The concept of unified chromatography has been in existence for 50 years after the work of Giddings proposing that all modes of chromatography (gas chromatography, liquid chromatography, supercritical fluid chromatography and so on) may be treated together under a single unified theory. His idea was partially fulfilled 23 years later by Ishii, Takeuchi and colleagues, who demonstrated for the first time the possibility to analyze a complex sample containing substances with a wide range of boiling points and polarities in the same instrument and column, just by varying the mobile phase pressure and temperature to change from one chromatographic mode to another. This approach has been demonstrated through application to the separation of complex mixtures in several areas including crude oil, edible oils and polymers.