Contact transfer of engineered nanomaterials in the workplace.

This study investigates the potential spread of cadmium selenide quantum dots in laboratory environments through contact of gloves with simulated dry spills on laboratory countertops. Secondary transfer of quantum dots from the contaminated gloves to other substrates was initiated by contact of the gloves with different materials found in the laboratory. Transfer of quantum dots to these substrates was qualitatively evaluated by inspection under ultraviolet illumination. This secondary contact resulted in the delivery of quantum dots to all the evaluated substrates. The amount of quantum dots transferred was quantified by elemental analysis. The residue containing quantum dots picked up by the glove was transferred to at least seven additional sections of the pristine substrate through a series of sequential contacts. These results demonstrate the potential for contact transfer as a pathway for spreading nanomaterials throughout the workplace, and that 7-day-old dried spills are susceptible to the propagation of nanomaterials by contact transfer. As research and commercialization of engineered nanomaterials increase worldwide, it is necessary to establish safe practices to protect workers from the potential for chronic exposure to potentially hazardous materials. Similar experimental procedures to those described herein can be adopted by industries or regulatory agencies to guide the development of their nanomaterial safety programmes.

Isolation of fast purine nucleotide synthase ribozymes.

Here we report the in vitro selection of fast ribozymes capable of promoting the synthesis of a purine nucleotide (6-thioguanosine monophosphate) from tethered 5-phosphoribosyl 1-pyrophosphate (PRPP) and 6-thioguanine ((6S)Gua). The two most proficient purine synthases have apparent efficiencies of 284 and 230 M(-1) min(-1) and are both significantly more efficient than pyrimidine nucleotide synthase ribozymes selected previously by a similar approach. Interestingly, while both ribozymes showed good substrate discrimination, one ribozyme had no detectable affinity for 6-thioguanine while the second had a K(m) of approximately 80 muM, indicating that these ribozymes use considerably different modes of substrate recognition. The purine synthases were isolated after 10 rounds of selection from two high-diversity RNA pools. The first pool contained a long random sequence region. The second pool contained random sequence elements interspersed with the mutagenized helical elements of a previously characterized 4-thiouridine synthase ribozyme. While nearly all of the ribozymes isolated from this biased pool population appeared to have benefited from utilizing one of the progenitor's helical elements, little evidence for more complicated secondary structure preservation was evident. The discovery of purine synthases, in addition to pyrimidine synthases, demonstrates the potential for nucleotide synthesis in an 'RNA World' and provides a context from which to study small molecule RNA catalysis.