Suchergebnisse

Among natural freshwater pollutants, cyanotoxins, mycotoxins, and phytotoxins are the most important and less studied. Their identification in surface water is challenging especially cause of the lack of standards and established analytical parameters. Most target methods focus one or a single group of compounds with similar characteristics. Here we present an AIF fast method for the tentative identification of natural toxins in water. Respect to the previous method [1], it offers higher performances for the acquisition of unknown compounds at low levels for higher number of analytes. The key aspects of the method are: • The qualitative screening DIA-AIF workflow using Q Exactive Orbitrap. Both targeted and suspect screening bases have been combined with online databases and suspect list to retrieve candidates as suspect natural toxins and their metabolites or degradation products. • The in-silico analysis of mass spectrums allowed a fast structural characterization. • The workflow has been finally applied to real samples coming from the Czech Republic, Italy, and Spain allowing the determination of 17 suspect natural toxins, 4 of them confirmed. None toxin passed the limit of 1 µg/L taken from the legislation applied for microcystin LR and arbitrarily extended to all toxins.

This paper investigates the morpho-phonological differences between the members of related noun-verb pairs in Catalan Sign Language. Like parallel investigations in other sign languages, our experimental work provides evidence that the major differentiating factors between related nouns and verbs materialize in the movement component of signs and non-manual markers, thus providing empirical support to the hypothesis that most of noun-verb pairs have different morpho-phonological properties. We distinguish different types of movements, which we categorize into four regular morphological subgroups. We also take into account a fifth group that shows no apparent movement distinction. Concerning non-manual markers, we provide empirical evidence that nouns are mostly produced simultaneously with mouthing, in contrast to verbs, which in a smaller proportion are produced mainly with mouth gestures. Crucially, the fifth group presents the largest ratio of mouthing for nouns and even for verbs. We address these findings within an exo-skeletal theoretical syntactic approach (Borer 2005a,b, 2013, 2014). ; We acknowledge the financial support for our research. M.Teresa Espinal's contribution has been made possible by the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness and FEDER Funds (FFI2017-82547-P) and Generalitat de Catalunya (2017SGR634), as well as by an ICREA Academia fellowship. Josep Quer's contribution has been made possible by the SIGN-HUB project, which has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No 693349, the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness and FEDER Funds (FFI2015-68594-P), and the Government of the Generalitat de Catalunya (2017SGR1478).

Antidepressant drugs such as Venlafaxine (VFX) and O-desmethylvenlafaxine (ODMVFX) are emerging contaminants that are commonly detected in aquatic environments, since conventional wastewater treatment plants are unable to completely remove them. They can be precursors of hazardous by-products, such as the carcinogenic N-nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA), generated upon water chlorination, as they contain the dimethylamino moiety, necessary for the formation of NDMA. In this study, the capability of three white rot fungi (Trametes versicolor, Ganoderma lucidum and Pleurotus ostreatus) to remove both antidepressants from water and to decrease NDMA formation potential was investigated. Furthermore, transformation by-products (TPs) generated along the treatment process were elucidated and also correlated with their NDMA formation potential. Very promising results were obtained for T. versicolor and G. lucidum, both being able to remove up to 100% of ODMVFX. In the case of VFX, which is very recalcitrant to conventional wastewater treatment, a 70% of removal was achieved by T. versicolor, along with a reduction in NDMA formation potential, thus decreasing the associated problems for human health and the environment. However, the NDMA formation potential remained practically constant during treatment with G. lucidum despite of the equally high VFX removal (70%). This difference was attributed to the generation of different TPs during both fungal treatments. For example, G. lucidum generated more ODMVFX, which actually has a higher NDMA formation potential than the parent compound itself. © 2018 Elsevier Ltd ; This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness (project CTQ2010-21776-C02 and CTM2013-48545-C2), co-financed by the European Union through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and supported by the Generalitat de Catalunya (Consolidated Research Groups: Catalan Institute for water Research 2014 SGR 291 and 2014 SGR 476). The Department of Chemical, Biological and Environmental Engineering of the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) is member of the Xarxa de Referència en Biotecnologia de la Generalitat de Catalunya. Castellet-Rovira, F. acknowledges a predoctoral grant from UAB. Dr. SRM acknowledges her Ramón y Cajal fellowship (RyC-2014-16707) and Dr. MJF acknowledges her Ramón y Cajal fellowship (RyC-2015-17108) from the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness. Dr. MJF acknowledges the European Commission for funding project 623711 under the FP7-PEOPLE-2013-IIF - Marie Curie Action: "International Incoming Fellowships". Adrián Jaén-Gil acknowledge their PhD scholarship from AGAUR (2017FI_B 00778). Pleurotus ostreatus (NCBI KJ020935) cultures were kindly provided by Laura Palli. ; Peer reviewed

The so-called marine litter, and in particular microplastics (MPs) and nanoplastics (NPs), are ubiquitously distributed and recognised as an emerging risk for the environment and human health. It is known that marine environments are one of the most impacted areas and among them; coastal zones are the most contaminated ones. They are subjected to population pressure, tourism, harbours, desalination plants, marine traffic and fish farms. This review is focused on the Mediterranean Sea, currently considered one hot spot of microplastics pollution in the world, as a consequence of the high number of plastic marine litter generating activities and its characteristic morphology of semi-enclosed sea. MPs and NPs have been detected not only in surface water and water columns but also in sediments, deep seafloor, and biota including fish and seafood for human consumption. Because of this, different European legislation initiatives have been launched during the last years in order to prevent MPs and NPs contamination and to face derived problems. Finally, this review summarises the main problems and shortcomings associated to MPs and NPs analyses such as their identification and quantification or the necessity of standardised protocols. ; Postprint