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a b s t r a c tIron nanoparticles were produced using extracts of green tea leaves (GT-Fe NPs). The materials were characterized using TEM, SEM/EDX, XPS, XRD, and FTIR techniques and were shown to contain mainly iron oxide and iron oxohydroxide. The obtained nanoparticles were then utilized as a Fenton-like catalyst for decolorization of aqueous solutions containing methylene blue (MB) and methyl orange (MO) dyes. The related experiments investigated the removal kinetics and the effect of concentration for both MB and MO. The concentrations of dyes in aqueous solution were monitored using ultraviolet-visible (UV-vis) spectroscopy. The results indicated fast removal of the dyes with the kinetic data of MB following a second order removal rate, while those of MO were closer to a first order removal rate. The loading experiments indicated almost complete removal of both dyes from water over a wide range of concentration, 10-200 mg L −1 . Compared with iron nanoparticles produced by borohydride reduction, GT-Fe nanoparticles demonstrated more effective capability as a Fenton-like catalyst, both in terms of kinetics and percentage removal.

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Treatment regimens for acute myeloid leukemia (AML) continue to offer weak clinical outcomes. Through a high-throughput cell-based screen, we identified avocatin B, a lipid derived from avocado fruit, as a novel compound with cytotoxic activity in AML. Avocatin B reduced human primary AML cell viability without effect on normal peripheral blood stem cells. Functional stem cell assays demonstrated selectivity toward AML progenitor and stem cells without effects on normal hematopoietic stem cells. Mechanistic investigations indicated that cytotoxicity relied on mitochondrial localization, as cells lacking functional mitochondria or CPT1, the enzyme that facilitates mitochondria lipid transport, were insensitive to avocatin B. Furthermore, avocatin B inhibited fatty acid oxidation and decreased NADPH levels, resulting in ROS-dependent leukemia cell death characterized by the release of mitochondrial proteins, apoptosis-inducing factor, and cytochrome c. This study reveals a novel strategy for selective leukemia cell eradication based on a specific difference in mitochondrial function. Cancer Res; 75(12); 2478-88. Ó2015 AACR.

In this work, a durable and easy to handle thin film microextraction (TFME) device is reported. The membrane is comprised of poly(divinylbenzene) (DVB) resin particles suspended in a high-density polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) glue, which is spread onto a carbon fiber mesh. The currently presented membrane was shown to exhibit a substantially lesser amount of siloxane bleed during thermal desorption, while providing a statistically similar extraction efficiency toward a broad spectrum of analytes varying in polarity when compared to an unsupported DVB/PDMS membrane of similar shape and size which was prepared with previously published methods. With the use of hand-portable GC-TMS instrumentation, membranes cut with dimensions 40 mm long by 4.85 mm wide and 40 ± 5 μm thick (per side) were shown to extract 21.2, 19.8, 18.5, 18,4, 26.8, and 23.7 times the amount of 2,4 dichlorophenol, 2,4,6 trichlorophenol, phorate D10, fonofos, chloropyrifos, and parathion, respectively, within 15 min from a 10 ppb aqueous solution as compared to a 65 μm DVB/PDMS solid phase microextraction (SPME) fiber. A portable high volume desorption module prototype was also evaluated and shown to be appropriate for the desorption of analytes with a volatility equal to or lesser than benzene when employed in conjunction with TFME membranes. Indeed, the coupling of these TFME devices to hand-portable gas chromatography toroidial ion trap mass spectrometry (GC-TMS) instrumentation was shown to push detection limits for these pesticides down to the hundreds of ppt levels, nearing that which can be achieved with benchtop instrumentation. Where these membranes can also be coupled to benchtop instrumentation it is reasonable to assume that detection limits could be pushed down even further. As a final proof of the concept, the first ever, entirely on-site TFME-GC-TMS analysis was performed at a construction impacted lake. Results had indicated the presence of contaminants such as toluene, ethylbenzene, xylene, 2,2,4-trimethyl-1,3-pentanediol diisobutyrate, and tris(1-chloro-2-propyl)phosphate, which stood out from other naturally occurring compounds detected.

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Most contemporary methods of screening and quantitating controlled substances and therapeutic drugs in biofluids typically require laborious, time-consuming, and expensive analytical workflows. In recent years, our group has worked toward developing microextraction (μe)-mass spectrometry (MS) technologies that merge all of the tedious steps of the classical methods into a simple, efficient, and low-cost methodology. Unquestionably, the automation of these technologies allows for faster sample throughput, greater reproducibility, and radically reduced analysis times. Coated blade spray (CBS) is a μe technology engineered for extracting/enriching analytes of interest in complex matrices, and it can be directly coupled with MS instruments to achieve efficient screening and quantitative analysis. In this study, we introduced CBS as a technology that can be arranged to perform either rapid diagnostics (single vial) or the high-throughput (96-well plate) analysis of biofluids. Furthermore, we demonstrate that performing 96-CBS extractions at the same time allows the total analysis time to be reduced to less than 55 s per sample. Aiming to validate the versatility of CBS, substances comprising a broad range of molecular weights, moieties, protein binding, and polarities were selected. Thus, the high-throughput (HT)-CBS technology was used for the concomitant quantitation of 18 compounds (mixture of anabolics, β-2 agonists, diuretics, stimulants, narcotics, and β-blockers) spiked in human urine and plasma samples. Excellent precision (∼2.5%), accuracy (≥90%), and linearity (R ≥ 0.99) were attained for all the studied compounds, and the limits of quantitation (LOQs) were within the range of 0.1 to 10 ng·mL for plasma and 0.25 to 10 ng·mL for urine. The results reported in this paper confirm CBS's great potential for achieving subsixty-second analyses of target compounds in a broad range of fields such as those related to clinical diagnosis, food, the environment, and forensics.

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