Determination of chloro- and methylthiotriazine compounds in human urine: extraction with diethyl ether and C 18 solid-phase extraction for gas chromatographic analysis with nitrogen-selective and electron capture detection

On-line concentration of triazine herbicides in microemulsion electrokinetic chromatography by electrokinetic injection assisted micelle to cyclodextrin stacking

A fast, simple, environmentally friendly and sensitive on-line concentration method using microemulsion system as background solution (BGS) was developed for the trace detection of propazine, atrazine, simazine in food samples. The electrokinetic injection assisted micelle to cyclodextrin stacking (MCDS) was designed for the enrichment of target compounds. The factors affected enrichment performance, such as the kind of CDs, the amount of CDs, the concentration of methanol in BGS, the concentration of micelle in sample matrix, the concentration of phosphoric acid in BGS and the sample injection time were optimized. The optimized electrophoretic condition was obtained as following: 50 mM α-CD, 20 mM SDS in sample matrix., 80 mM PA and 20% MeOH (v/v) in BGS, sample solution by electrokinetic injection at -10 kV for 80 s. Under the optimized conditions described above, the linear range was 0.1-20 ug/mL with a good linear relationship with a correlation coefficient (r) ≥ 0.9985. The SEFs for the propazine, atrazine, simazine were found to be 123, 85 and 62 respectively. The proposed MCDS-MEEKC method provided an efficient method for trace analysis of triazine herbicides in honey and dendrobium officinale samples.

Oxidative stress in triazine pesticide toxicity: a review of the main biomarker findings

This review article provides a summary of the studies relying on oxidative stress biomarkers (lipid peroxidation and antioxidant enzymes in particular) to investigate the effects of atrazine and terbuthylazine exposure in experimental animals and humans published since 2010. In general, experimental animals showed that atrazine and terbuthylazine exposure mostly affected their antioxidant defences and, to a lesser extent, lipid peroxidation, but the effects varied by the species, sex, age, herbicide concentration, and duration of exposure. Most of the studies involved aquatic organisms as useful and sensitive bio-indicators of environmental pollution and important part of the food chain. In laboratory mice and rats changes in oxidative stress markers were visible only with exposure to high doses of atrazine. Recently, our group reported that low-dose terbuthylazine could also induce oxidative stress in Wistar rats. It is evident that any experimental assessment of pesticide toxic effects should take into account a combination of several oxidative stress and antioxidant defence biomarkers in various tissues and cell compartments. The identified effects in experimental models should then be complemented and validated by epidemiological studies. This is important if we wish to understand the impact of pesticides on human health and to establish safe limits.

Determination of Prometryn in Vetiver Grass and Water Using Gas Chromatography-Nitrogen Chemiluminescence Detection

Nitrogen chemiluminescence detector (NCD) is a nitrogen-specific detector that responds to ammonia, hydrazine, hydrogen cyanide and nitrogen oxide. A method to analyze the herbicide prometryn in plant and water samples was developed using gas chromatograph (GC) coupled with NCD. Extracts from plant (vetiver grass) and water matrices were analyzed for prometryn using an Agilent 7890A GC coupled with an Agilent 255 NCD in a split injection mode with a ratio of 2 : 1. Separation was carried out at 200°C and combustion at 1,018°C with H2 and O2 following optimized method development conditions. The percent recovery of prometryn in the two different matrices tested ranged from 81 to 107%, with relative standard deviations varying from 0.10 to 3.30% for spiked samples. Detection limit of the proposed method was 0.02 µg mL(-1) and the limit of quantification was 0.06 µg mL(-1). The proposed GC-NCD method was successfully applied to determine prometryn extracted from plant and water samples without potential interference of S-triazine, a pesticide from the same group.

[Biomonitoring of human exposure to triazine herbicides]

Triazine herbicides are very common and only 0.1 % reach the target pests, while the rest moves into other environmental compartments. Their fate in the environment depends on their movement through the air, water, and soil and on the rate of their degradation or transformation. Triazine compounds may be transformed by water, microorganisms, and sunlight. Widespread use and persistence of triazine herbicides in soil has resulted in contamination of surface, drinking, and even rain water with parent compounds and degradation products, posing a risk to the general population.The metabolism and effects of triazine herbicides have been studied in experimental animals and in experiments in vitro. There are only a few studies of their metabolism and excretion in humans. Agricultural and manufacturing workers are exposed to triazines during application and production. Human exposure is monitored by determining parent compounds and their metabolites in urine. Due to the low concentrations of urinary metabolites in occupationally exposed persons, very sensitive analytical methods are required. This paper describes the structure and properties of symmetric triazine herbicides, their metabolism, and effects in humans and animals and the levels of these compounds in the urine of occupationally exposed persons.

Identification of a metabolite of atrazine, N-ethyl-6-methoxy-N′-(1-methylethyl)-1,3,5-triazine-2,4-diamine, upon incubation with rat liver microsomes

Atrazine is an herbicide which has shown potential antimalarial effects both in vitro and in vivo in rats. In order to study the metabolism of atrazine in rat livers, we developed a sensitive LC/MS/MS method for the identification of atrazine and several of its metabolites. Using this method, we identified one previously unreported metabolite with a mass of 211 Da in addition to two known metabolites. This new metabolite was confirmed to be N-ethyl-6-methoxy-N'-(1-methylethyl)-1,3,5-triazine-2,4-diamine, also known as atraton, by comparison of the LC/MS/MS mass spectra and the retention time to those of a commercial standard.

Solid-phase extraction with styrene-divinylbenzene sorbent for high-performance liquid or gas chromatographic determination of urinary chloro- and methylthiotriazines

A solid-phase extraction (SPE) procedure on a styrene-divinylbenzene (SDB-1 cartridge) for extraction and cleaning of the triazine herbicides atrazine, simazine, ametryn, and prometryn and atrazine monodealkylated metabolites from urine samples was developed and optimised for final high-performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC-UV diode array detection) and gas chromatographic (GC-electron-capture detection and GC-thermionic-sensitive detection) analyses. Interfering polar matrices were eliminated by rinsing SDB-1 with 1% acetonitrile in water or with pure water. Extraction recoveries were from 78 to 101% with an RSD of about 10% for all studied compounds. The extraction recovery for the didealkylated atrazine metabolite was significantly lower and this compound cannot be determined with these procedures. Sorbent matrix generated interferences, although not detected by the chromatographic system, lowered the response of nitrogen-phosphorus and electron-capture GC detectors for monodealkylated chlorotriazines when compared to standards prepared in n-hexane. HPLC and GC analysis with SPE (SDB-1) preconcentration showed excellent linearity over the concentration range tested, with detection limits in urine of 10 ng ml(-1) for the parent herbicides (HPLC and GC analysis) and 20 ng ml(-1) for monodealkylated chlorotriazines (HPLC analysis).