Analysis of endosulfan and its metabolites in rat plasma and selected tissue samples by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry

Abstract

A method has been developed for the determination of trace levels of alpha-endosulfan, beta-endosulfan, endosulfan sulfate, and endosulfan diol in rat plasma and tissue samples. Endosulfan and its metabolites in the plasma samples were extracted with solid-phase extraction Chromabond-end-capped C18 cartridges and analyzed by a Shimadzu QP-5050A gas chromatograph-mass spectrometer (GCMS) with quadrupole detector in selected-ion-monitoring mode. The analysis of endosulfan and its metabolites in liver and kidney samples involved solvent extraction, Florisil solid-phase-extraction cleanup, and quantitation by GCMS. Recovery experiments for the plasma and tissue samples were conducted over concentration ranges of 10-100 ng mL(-1) and 100-1000 ng mL(-1), respectively. The method was applied to the analysis of trace levels of endosulfan and its metabolites in plasma and tissue samples collected from an animal study. Trace levels of alpha-endosulfan and beta-endosulfan in the ranges of undetectable to 3.11 microg g(-1) and undetectable to 1.19 microg g(-1), respectively, were detected in the kidney samples, whereas trace levels of endosulfan sulfate in the range of 0.02-0.22 microg g(-1) were detected in the liver samples of rats. Neither endosulfan nor its metabolites was detected in any of the plasma samples.

Determination of pesticides in postmortem blood and bone marrow of pesticide treated rabbits

“…Two main points of view were observed in the literature about the levels of endosulfan in the organs. The researchers who obtained higher levels of endosulfan in the kidney than in the liver argued that higher levels in the kidney are expected since the kidney is the target organ for the excretion of chemical agents [9,26,27]. On the other hand, the researchers who obtained higher levels in the liver advocated that the liver has high biochemical activity, being the detoxification organ [13,28].…”

“…Diazinon was observed, with high percentages of recovery, from the same samples as a consequence of excluding this step in the present study. Treating tissues with large amounts of chemicals in a Soxhlet apparatus, which is a time-consuming (at least 8 h) process performed in tissue extraction for pesticides was eliminated in our study to shorten the duration of the method [9,17,18].…”

“…Tissue was extracted using a modified method that was originally described by the IAEA (1998) [9,10]. One gram of tissue sample was homogenized with 0.3 g of anhydrous sodium sulfate using a homogenizer.…”

Maternal Residence Near Agricultural Pesticide Applications and Autism Spectrum Disorders among Children in the California Central Valley

“…In rats, endosulfan is converted by the liver after oral administration to endosulfan sulfate and endosulfan diol; peak serum concentrations are reached within hours and elimination achieved within days (Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry 2000; Chan and Mohd 2005; Chan et al 2005). In humans, the diol compound in particular has been detected in both placenta and neonatal cord blood (Cerillo et al 2005).…”

A simple and economical method of gas chromatography-mass spectrometry to determine the presence of 6 pesticides in human plasma and its clinical application in patients with acute poisoning

“…Some methods such as GC-NPD, GC-MS, and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) have been used to determine the presence of dichlorvos (21), acetochlor (22), atrazine (23), chlorpyrifos (24), and α-endosulfan and β-endosulfan (25) in plasma or serum. However, these methods can only detect one or two pesticides, and liquid-liquid extraction or SPE requires a somewhat complicated method of sample preparation.…”