Reduction of hazardous organic solvent in sample preparation for hydrophilic pesticide residues in agricultural products with conventional liquid chromatography

Evaluation of ELISA for the analysis of imidacloprid in biological matrices: Cross-reactivities, matrix interferences, and comparison to LC-MS/MS

Imidacloprid is among the most used pesticides worldwide and there are toxicity concerns for nontarget organisms. Accurate and sensitive methods are necessary to quantitate imidacloprid concentrations in biological matrices to better understand their fate and effects. Here we evaluated an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) kit for the analysis of imidacloprid in biological samples. Following the dosing of Japanese quail (Coturnix japonica) with imidacloprid-treated wheat seeds, plasma, liver, and fecal matter samples were analyzed by ELISA and compared to previous analyses that employed liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). Imidacloprid metabolites-5-OH-imidacloprid, imidacloprid-olefin, imidacloprid-urea, desnitro-imidacloprid, and 6-chloronicotinic acid-were tested for their cross-reactivity to antibodies within the commercial imidacloprid ELISA kit. The two major metabolites, 5-OH-imidacloprid and imidacloprid-olefin, showed cross-reactivities of 0.93-26 %. ELISA and LC-MS/MS results were positively correlated but there was poor agreement in concentrations: plasma and fecal matter imidacloprid concentrations were higher by ELISA, whereas liver imidacloprid concentrations were higher by LC-MS/MS. Matrix interferences observed in analyses were minimized by the application of matrix-matched calibration curves. ELISA provided an effective screening tool for imidacloprid in these biological matrices, but the presence of cross-reactants confounded results. Confirmation of ELISA results by more selective techniques (e.g., LC-MS/MS) is suggested for complex samples.

A low-background fluorescent aptasensor for acetamiprid detection based on DNA three-way junction-formed G-quadruplexes and graphene oxide

A simple fluorescence detection platform has been established for acetamiprid assay based on DNA three-way junctions (TWJs), which can triple the fluorescence signal without any other amplification. It is designed with three single-stranded DNAs (ssDNA), each of which contains one-third or two-thirds of the G-quadruplex sequence at each end. Upon the addition of acetamiprid, the conformation of the aptamer-containing double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) changes from its original conformation and releases a strand of ssDNA. This ssDNA, with the other two ssDNAs, can assemble into DNA TWJs, and the three pairs of the branched ends of the DNA TWJs are adjacent to each other, allowing them to form three units of G-quadruplexes. Hence, the fluorescence of N-methyl mesoporphyrin IX (NMM) is lighted by the nascent G-quadruplexes. Graphene oxide (GO) is then added to minimize the detection background by absorbing the free NMM and non-target-induced ssDNA. The proposed strategy can assay acetamiprid in a wide linear range of 0-500 nM with a detection limit of 5.73 nM. More importantly, this assay platform demonstrates high potential for acetamiprid assay in food control and environmental monitoring.

Fate of Residual Pesticides in Fruit and Vegetable Waste (FVW) Processing

Plants need to be protected against pests and diseases, so as to assure an adequate production, and therefore to contribute to food security. However, some of the used pesticides are harmful compounds, and thus the right balance between the need to increase food production with the need to ensure the safety of people, food and the environment must be struck. In particular, when dealing with fruit and vegetable wastes, their content in agrochemicals should be monitored, especially in peel and skins, and eventually minimized before or during further processing to separate or concentrate bioactive compounds from it. The general objective of this review is to investigate initial levels of pesticide residues and their potential reduction through further processing for some of the most contaminated fruit and vegetable wastes. Focus will be placed on extraction and drying processes being amid the main processing steps used in the recuperation of bioactive compounds from fruit and vegetable wastes.

Direct determination of neonicotinoid insecticides in an analytically challenging crop such as Chinese chives using selective ELISAs

Easy-to-use commercial kit-based enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISAs) have been used to detect neonicotinoid dinotefuran, clothianidin and imidacloprid in Chinese chives, which are considered a troublesome matrix for chromatographic techniques. Based on their high water solubility, water was used as an extractant. Matrix interference could be avoided substantially just diluting sample extracts. Average recoveries of insecticides from spiked samples were 85-113%, with relative standard deviation of <15%. The concentrations of insecticides detected from the spiked samples with the proposed ELISA methods correlated well with those by the reference high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method. The residues analyzed by the ELISA methods were consistently 1.24 times that found by the HPLC method, attributable to loss of analyte during sample clean-up for HPLC analyses. It was revealed that the ELISA methods can be applied easily to pesticide residue analysis in troublesome matrix such as Chinese chives.

Automated Multiplug Filtration Cleanup for Pesticide Residue Analyses in Kiwi Fruit (Actinidia chinensis) and Kiwi Juice by Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry

To reduce labor-consuming manual operation workload in the cleanup steps, an automated multiplug filtration cleanup (m-PFC) method for QuEChERS (quick, easy, cheap, effective, rugged, and safe) extracts was developed. It could control the volume and speed of pulling and pushing cycles accurately. In this study, m-PFC was based on multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) mixed with primary-secondary amines (PSA) and anhydrous magnesium sulfate (MgSO4) in a packed column for analysis of pesticide residues followed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) detection. It was validated by analyzing 33 pesticides in kiwi fruit and kiwi juice matrices spiked at two concentration levels of 10 and 100 μg/kg. Salts, sorbents, m-PFC procedure, 4 mL of automated pulling and pushing volume, 6 mL/min automated pulling speed, and 8 mL/min pushing speed were optimized for each matrix. After optimization, spike recoveries were within 71-120% and <20% RSD for all analytes in kiwi fruit and kiwi juice. Matrix-matched calibrations were performed with the coefficients of determination >0.99 between concentration levels of 10 and 1000 μg/kg. The developed method was successfully applied to the determination of pesticide residues in market samples.

Electrochemical behavior of the insecticide pymetrozine at an electrochemically pretreated glassy carbon electrode and its analytical application

A simple and sensitive electrochemical method for the determination of the insecticide pymetrozine was proposed using a simple electrochemically pretreated glassy carbon electrode (EPGCE). Compared with the bare GCE, the electrochemical response signal of pymetrozine at the EPGCE showed a significant increase. The electrochemical behavior of pymetrozine was investigated systematically and some dynamics were investigated in detail for the first time. The results indicate that the reaction of pymetrozine on the EPGCE is a two electron and two proton process, which is controlled by both diffusion and adsorption. Under optimum conditions, a good linear relationship was obtained between peak currents and pymetrozine concentrations in the range of 1 × 10-7 to 5 × 10-6 mol L-1 with a detection limit of 8 × 10-8 mol L-1 (S/N = 3). The proposed method was applied to the determination of pymetrozine in real samples with satisfactory recovery results. Finally, the degradation of pymetrozine was also studied in natural soil.

Rapid multiplug filtration cleanup with multiple-walled carbon nanotubes and gas chromatography-triple-quadruple mass spectrometry detection for 186 pesticide residues in tomato and tomato products

This study reports the development and validation of a novel rapid cleanup method based on multiple-walled carbon nanotubes in a packed column filtration procedure for analysis of pesticide residues followed by gas chromatography-triple-quadruple tandem mass spectrometry detection. The cleanup method was carried out by applying the streamlined procedure on a multiplug filtration cleanup column with syringes. The sorbent used for removing the interferences in the matrices is multiple-walled carbon nanotubes mixed with anhydrous magnesium sulfate. The proposed cleanup method is convenient and time-saving as it does not require any solvent evaporation, vortex, or centrifugation procedures. It was validated on 186 pesticides and 3 tomato product matrices spiked at two concentration levels of 10 and 100 μg kg(-1). Satisfactory recoveries and relative standard deviations are shown for most pesticides using the multiplug filtration cleanup method in tomato product samples. The developed method was successfully applied to the determination of pesticide residues in market samples.

Water-based extraction and liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry analysis of neonicotinoid insecticides and their metabolites in green pepper/tomato samples

This paper proposes an environmentally friendly method involving water-based extraction of the samples, cleanup of the extracts by solid-phase extraction, and subsequent liquid chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectrometry, which was used for simultaneous determination of seven hydrophilic neonicotinoid insecticides as well as their metabolites in agricultural samples. The effects of sample matrix on detection of the target compounds were negligibly small. Mean recoveries obtained at spiked concentrations between 0.01 and 1.00 mg/kg were 71.2-122.3% with relative standard deviations of ≤ 7.5%. When the method was applied to crop samples sprayed with commercial formulations of the target compounds, the residual concentrations of the compounds determined by the proposed method (0.015-0.27 mg/kg in green peppers and 0.017-0.31 mg/kg in tomatoes) were equivalent to those determined by the official Japanese method (0.017-0.26 mg/kg in green peppers and 0.013-0.30 mg/kg in tomatoes).

Aqueous acetonitrile extraction for pesticide residue analysis in agricultural products with HPLC-DAD

To reduce hazardous organic solvent consumption during sample preparation procedures as much as possible, an extraction method of smallest feasible sample volume (5g) using aqueous acetonitrile (MeCN) was developed to extract pesticide residues from agricultural samples prior to HPLC-DAD determination. Extraction with MeCN/water (1:1, v/v), and adjustment of the MeCN concentration by diluting with water after extraction recovered successfully most pesticides showing various physicochemical properties. The matrix effects of tested samples on the proposed method developed herein were generally negligibly-small. The average recoveries were in the range 70-120% for all pesticides with the coefficient of variation values below 20%. The reduction rate of organic solvents used for the proposed sample preparation method was up to approximately 60% compared with the Japanese authorised official method for pesticide residue analyses. These results demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed method for pesticides with diverse properties.