Effects of the essential metals copper and zinc in two freshwater detritivores species: Biochemical approach.

The input of metals into freshwater ecosystems from natural and anthropogenic sources impairs water quality and can lead to biological alterations in organisms and plants, compromising the structure and the function of these ecosystems. Biochemical biomarkers may provide early detection of exposure to contaminants and indicate potential effects at higher levels of biological organisation. The effects of 48h exposures to copper and zinc on Atyaephyra desmarestii and Echinogammarus meridionalis were evaluated with a battery of biomarkers of oxidative stress and the determination of ingestion rates. The results showed different responses of biomarkers between species and each metal. Copper inhibited the enzymatic defence system of both species without signs of oxidative damage. Zinc induced the defence system in E. meriodionalis with no evidence of oxidative damage. However, in A. desmarestii exposed to zinc was observed oxidative damage. In addition, only zinc had significantly reduced the ingestion rate and just for E. meridionalis. The value of the integrated biomarkers response increased with concentration of both metals, which indicates that might be a valuable tool to interpretation of data as a whole, as different parameters have different weight according to type of exposure.

Cholinesterase activity on Echinogammarus meridionalis (Pinkster) and Atyaephyra desmarestii (Millet): characterisation and in vivo effects of copper and zinc.

Metals are released into freshwater ecosystems from natural and anthropogenic sources, compromising their structural and functional equilibrium. As early warning tools, cholinesterases (ChEs) are usually used to assess the effects of organophosphate and carbamate pesticides, but are also known to be inhibited by metals. The objectives of this work were to characterise the activity of ChE present in the amphipod Echinogammarus meridionalis and the shrimp Atyaephyra desmarestii and to evaluate the in vivo effects of the metals copper and zinc in their ChE activity. To achieve this, firstly the activity of ChE forms were characterised using different in vitro assays with substrates and selective inhibitors. Then, the in vivo effects of 48 h exposures to increasing concentrations of copper and zinc on ChE activity were determined. The ChE form present in both species was acetylcholinesterase (AChE) since both revealed preference for the acetylthiocholine iodide substrate, total inhibition with eserine, the inhibitor of ChEs, and with 1,5-bis(4-allyldimethylammoniumphenyl)-pentan-3-one dibromide, the specific inhibitor of AChE, and presented insensitivity to iso-OMPA, a specific inhibitor of butyrylcholinesterase. The activity of ChEs was inhibited by zinc exposures in the amphipod species, but was not affected by copper. Exposure to copper and zinc did not affect ChEs activity in the shrimp at the concentrations tested. This work is a relevant contribution as foundation for the use of AChE in freshwater crustaceans in further studies including biomonitoring campaigns in different contamination scenarios.

Biomonitoring of several toxic metal(loid)s in different biological matrices from environmentally and occupationally exposed populations from Panasqueira mine area, Portugal.

In the Panasqueira mine area of central Portugal, some environmental media show higher metal(loid) concentrations when compared with the local geochemical background and the values proposed in the literature for these environmental media. In order to evaluate the effect of the external contamination on selected indexes of internal dose, As, Cd, Cu, Cr, Fe, Hg, Mg, Mn, Mo, Ni, Pb, S, Se, Si, and Zn were quantified by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry and inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry in blood, urine, hair and nail samples from individuals environmentally (N = 41) and occupationally exposed (N = 41). A matched control group (N = 40) was also studied, and data from the three groups were compared. Results obtained agreed with those reported by environmental studies performed in this area, pointing to populations living nearby and working in the mine being exposed to metal(loid)s originated from mining activities. Arsenic was the element with the highest increase in exposed populations. The concentration of other elements such as Cr, Mg, Mn, Mo, Ni, Pb, S, Se, and Zn was also increased, although at a lesser extent, specifically in the individuals environmentally exposed and in females. These findings confirm the need for competent authorities to act as soon as possible in this area and implement strategies aimed to protect exposed populations and the entire ecosystem.

Past progress in environmental nanoanalysis and a future trajectory for atomic mass-spectrometry methods.

The development of engineered nanotechnology has necessitated a commensurate maturation of nanoanalysis capabilities. Building off a legacy established by electron microscopy and light-scattering, environmental nanoanalysis has now benefited from ongoing advancements in instrumentation and data analysis, which enable a deeper understanding of nanomaterial properties, behavior, and impacts. Where once environmental nanoparticles and colloids were grouped into broad 'dissolved or particulate' classes that are dependent on a filter size cut-off, now size distributions of submicron particles can be separated and characterized providing a more comprehensive examination of the nanoscale. Inductively coupled plasma-quadrupole mass spectrometry (ICP-QMS), directly coupled to field flow fractionation (FFF-ICP-QMS) or operated in single particle mode (spICP-MS) have spearheaded a revolution in nanoanalysis, enabling research into nanomaterial behavior in environmental and biological systems at expected release concentrations. However, the complexity of the nanoparticle population drives a need to characterize and quantify the multi-element composition of nanoparticles, which has begun to be realized through the application of time-of-flight MS (spICP-TOFMS). Despite its relative infancy, this technique has begun to make significant strides in more fully characterizing particulate systems and expanding our understanding of nanoparticle behavior. Though there is still more work to be done with regards to improving instrumentation and data processing, it is possible we are on the cusp of a new nanoanalysis revolution, capable of broadening our understanding of the size regime between dissolved and bulk particulate compartments of the environment.

Cardiac and vascular metal deposition with high mortality in nephrogenic systemic fibrosis.

Nephrogenic systemic fibrosis is a severe disabling disease that can follow gadolinium-based contrast exposure. In this study we analyzed the clinical and laboratory records of patients with nephrogenic systemic fibrosis who had a history of exposure to gadolinium-based contrast media and identified their cardiac and vascular events. At autopsy, we found that the heart, blood vessels, and skin of three patients who died of cardiac and/or vascular complications had appreciable amounts of gadolinium, iron, and aluminum as measured by inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry and confirmed by x-ray fluorescence. Of the 32 patients with nephrogenic systemic fibrosis studied, 10 died at a median of 112 days after diagnosis. Cardiovascular events contributed to the mortality of 9 patients and included congestive heart failure, recurrent arrhythmias, hypotension, stroke, limb ischemia, posterior ischemic optic neuropathy and sudden death. Our results show that increased cardiac and vascular complications along with short survival in nephrogenic systemic fibrosis are associated with metal accumulation in the heart, blood vessels, and skin of these patients.

Bioavailability of sediment-associated Cu and Zn to Daphnia magna.

Exposures to mining-impacted, field-collected sediment (Clear Creek, CO, USA) contaminated with Cu (2.4 mg/g) and Zn (5.2 mg/g) were acutely toxic to juvenile Daphnia magna. Dissolved Cu and Zn in the overlying water (sediment+reference water) were at levels that could cause acute toxicity. To reduce dissolved metals below toxic levels, the sediment was repeatedly rinsed to remove any easily mobilized metals. Washing the sediment reduced dissolved Cu by 60% and Zn by 80%. D. magna exposed to washed sediment experienced higher survival (95%) compared to those exposed to the original sediment (<50%). Cu and Zn that remained associated with suspended sediment after washing were not bioavailable, since survival and tissue metal concentrations in D. magna exposed to both filtered (>0.45 microm) and unfiltered overlying water were statistically similar. Multiple regression analysis indicated that only dissolved Cu significantly contributed to mortality of D. magna whereas particulate Cu, particulate Zn, and dissolved Zn did not. Regression analysis on a combined dataset from all Clear Creek exposures (washed and unwashed), revealed a significant (p < 0.0001, r(2) = 0.76) relationship between the concentration of dissolved copper in the overlying water and the mortality of exposed Daphnia, yielding an estimated LC50 of 26 microg/L dissolved copper (hardness approximately 140 mg/L). The results of this study indicate that if the sediment of Clear Creek was subjected to a resuspension event that there would be a significant efflux of metals from the sediment into the water column, resulting in potentially toxic levels in the water column.

Daphnia need to be gut-cleared too: the effect of exposure to and ingestion of metal-contaminated sediment on the gut-clearance patterns of D. magna.

The presence of sediment particles in the gut indicated that Daphnia magna used in whole-sediment bioassays ingest sediment. If gut contents are not removed prior to whole-body tissue-burden analysis, then the bioavailability of any sediment-associated contaminants (e.g. metals) can be overestimated. Gut clearing patterns were determined for D. magna after exposure to both clean and metal-contaminated (Cu and Zn) field-collected sediments. D. magna exposed to reference sediment had fuller guts than those exposed to metal-contaminated sediment (95% versus 60% full). Neither reference- nor metal-exposed D. magna could clear their gut completely of sediment particles when held in clean water for 24 h. When Daphnia were transferred to clean water after exposure to metal-contaminated sediment, there was no significant decrease in gut-fullness (P>0.05) even after 48 h of purging. By comparison, animals transferred to water containing 5 x 10(5) cells of algae (Pseudokircheriella subcapita) after exposure to contaminated sediment showed a significant drop in gut fullness from 56% immediately after exposure to 17% after 4 h of gut-clearance. Although gut fullness did not change significantly beyond 2 h of purging, data were much less variable after 8 h of gut-clearance than after 2 h or 4 h. The depuration of Cu was well described with a two-compartment first-order kinetic model (r2=0.78, P<0.0001) indicating that D. magna exposed to metal-contaminated sediment have one pool of Cu that is quickly depurated (0.2 h(-1)), and one that has been incorporated into the tissues (<<0.00001 h(-1)). Assuming tissue background of 48 microg/g, an exposed animal which has not been depurated or which has been purged with water alone would yield whole-body tissue Cu concentrations that are 5.6- and 4-fold higher, respectively, than that purged with algae + water (8 h). We recommend that D. magna used to estimate metal bioavailability from sediment be gut-cleared in the presence of algae for 8 h prior to determination of whole-body metal concentrations.

Presence of organoarsenicals used in cotton production in agricultural water and soil of the southern United States.

Arsenicals have been used extensively in agriculture in the United States as insecticides and herbicides. Mono- and disodium methylarsonate and dimethylarsinic acid are organoarsenicals used to control weeds in cotton fields and as defoliation agents applied prior to cotton harvesting. Because the toxicity of most organoarsenicals is less than that of inorganic arsenic species, the introduction of these compounds into the environment might seem benign. However, biotic and abiotic degradation reactions can produce more problematic inorganic forms of arsenic, such as arsenite [As(III)] and arsenate [As(V)]. This study investigates the occurrences of these compounds in samples of soil and associated surface and groundwaters. Preliminary results show that surface water samples from cotton-producing areas have elevated concentrations of methylarsenic species (>10 microg of As/L) compared to background areas (<1 microg of As/L). Species transformations also occur between surface waters and adjacent soils and groundwaters, which also contain elevated arsenic. The data indicate that point sources of arsenic related to agriculture might be responsible for increased arsenic concentrations in local irrigation wells, although the elevated concentrations did not exceed the new (2002) arsenic maximum contaminant level of 10 microg/L in any of the wells sampled thus far.

Field and laboratory arsenic speciation methods and their application to natural-water analysis.

The toxic and carcinogenic properties of inorganic and organic arsenic species make their determination in natural water vitally important. Determination of individual inorganic and organic arsenic species is critical because the toxicology, mobility, and adsorptivity vary substantially. Several methods for the speciation of arsenic in groundwater, surface-water, and acid mine drainage sample matrices using field and laboratory techniques are presented. The methods provide quantitative determination of arsenite [As(III)], arsenate [As(V)], monomethylarsonate (MMA), dimethylarsinate (DMA), and roxarsone in 2-8 min at detection limits of less than 1 microg arsenic per liter (microg As L(-1)). All the methods use anion exchange chromatography to separate the arsenic species and inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry as an arsenic-specific detector. Different methods were needed because some sample matrices did not have all arsenic species present or were incompatible with particular high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) mobile phases. The bias and variability of the methods were evaluated using total arsenic, As(III), As(V), DMA, and MMA results from more than 100 surface-water, groundwater, and acid mine drainage samples, and reference materials. Concentrations in test samples were as much as 13,000 microg As L(-1) for As(III) and 3700 microg As L(-1) for As(V). Methylated arsenic species were less than 100 microg As L(-1) and were found only in certain surface-water samples, and roxarsone was not detected in any of the water samples tested. The distribution of inorganic arsenic species in the test samples ranged from 0% to 90% As(III). Laboratory-speciation method variability for As(III), As(V), MMA, and DMA in reagent water at 0.5 microg As L(-1) was 8-13% (n=7). Field-speciation method variability for As(III) and As(V) at 1 microg As L(-1) in reagent water was 3-4% (n=3).

Photodegradation of roxarsone in poultry litter leachates.

Arsenic compounds have been used extensively in agriculture in the US for applications ranging from cotton herbicides to animal feed supplements. Roxarsone (3-nitro-4-hydroxyphenylarsonic acid), in particular, is used widely in poultry production to control coccidial intestinal parasites. It is excreted unchanged in the manure and introduced into the environment when litter is applied to farmland as fertilizer. Although the toxicity of roxarsone is less than that of inorganic arsenic, roxarsone can degrade, biotically and abiotically, to produce more toxic inorganic forms of arsenic, such as arsenite and arsenate. Experiments were conducted on aqueous litter leachates to test the stability of roxarsone under different conditions. Laboratory experiments have shown that arsenite can be cleaved photolytically from the roxarsone moiety at pH 4-8 and that the degradation rate increases with increasing pH. Furthermore, the rate of photodegradation increases with nitrate and natural organic matter concentration, reactants that are commonly found in poultry-litter-water leachates. Additional photochemical reactions rapidly oxidize the cleaved arsenite to arsenate. The formation of arsenate is not entirely undesirable, because it is less mobile in soil systems and less toxic than arsenite. A possible mechanism for the degradation of roxarsone in poultry litter leachates is proposed. The results suggest that poultry litter storage and field application practices could affect the degradation of roxarsone and subsequent mobilization of inorganic arsenic species.

Feeding preferences of two detritivores related to size and metal content of leaves: the crustaceans Atyaephyra desmarestii (Millet) and Echinogammarus meridionalis (Pinkster).

The equilibrium of the structure and functioning of freshwater ecosystems is dependent of detritivores that link all the other functional groups. The preference for feeding leaves with different diameters (particle size) and leaves with metal contamination (several concentrations of the essential metals copper and zinc) were determined for two detritivores, the decapod Atyaephyra desmarestii and the amphipod Echinogammarus meridionalis. Several no-choice and multi-choice assays were done to determinate which leaf diameter the amphipod and the decapod species would eat when they had or not had alternatives available and include a set of dual-choice assays with contaminated and uncontaminated foods. No significant preference was shown by either species relative to the diameter of leaves, either on no-choice or multi-choice assays. The presence of essential metals on food did not had any influence on the feeding choice of these organisms over the concentration range studied. Both showed no preference on ingesting food spiked with these essential metals, except E. meridionalis which preferred ingesting leaves with 2.19 µg.l(-1) of copper instead of uncontaminated leaves. For further works, despite no preference for leaves with a certain diameter, the leaves with 0.70 cm (0.385 cm(2)of area) and with 0.50 cm (1.767 cm(2) of area) should be used for A. desmarestii and E. meridionalis, respectively. Furthermore, to maintain E. meridionalis, the diet should include some percentage of copper in order to accomplish metabolic needs.

Comparison of on-line detectors for field flow fractionation analysis of nanomaterials.

Characterization of nanomaterials must include analysis of both size and chemical composition. Many analytical techniques, such as dynamic light scattering (DLS), are capable of measuring the size of suspended nanometer-sized particles, yet provide no information on the composition of the particle. While field flow fractionation (FFF) is a powerful nanoparticle sizing technique, common detectors used in conjunction with the size separation, including UV, light-scattering, and fluorescence spectroscopy, do not provide the needed particle compositional information. Further, these detectors do not respond directly to the mass concentration of nanoparticles. The present work describes the advantages achieved when interfacing sensitive and elemental specific detectors, such as inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectroscopy and mass spectrometry, to FFF separation analysis to provide high resolution nanoparticle sizing and compositional analysis at the µg/L concentration level, a detection at least 10-100-fold lower than DLS or FFF-UV techniques. The full benefits are only achieved by utilization of all detector capabilities, such as dynamic reaction cell (DRC) ICP-MS. Such low-level detection and characterization capability is critical to nanomaterial investigations at biologically and environmentally relevant concentrations. The techniques have been modified and applied to characterization of all four elemental constituents of cadmium selenide-zinc sulfide core-shell quantum dots, and silver nanoparticles with gold seed cores. Additionally, sulfide coatings on silver nanoparticles can be detected as a potential means to determine environmental aging of nanoparticles.

Characterization of silver nanoparticles using flow-field flow fractionation interfaced to inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry.

The ability to detect and identify the physiochemical form of contaminants in the environment is important for degradation, fate and transport, and toxicity studies. This is particularly true of nanomaterials that exist as discrete particles rather than dissolved or sorbed contaminant molecules in the environment. Nanoparticles will tend to agglomerate or dissolve, based on solution chemistry, which will drastically affect their environmental properties. The current study investigates the use of field flow fractionation (FFF) interfaced to inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) as a sensitive and selective method for detection and characterization of silver nanoparticles. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) is used to verify the morphology and primary particle size and size distribution of precisely engineered silver nanoparticles. Subsequently, the hydrodynamic size measurements by FFF are compared to dynamic light scattering (DLS) to verify the accuracy of the size determination. Additionally, the sensitivity of the ICP-MS detector is demonstrated by fractionation of µg/L concentrations of mixed silver nanoparticle standards. The technique has been applied to nanoparticle suspensions prior to use in toxicity studies, and post-exposure biological tissue analysis. Silver nanoparticles extracted from tissues of the sediment-dwelling, freshwater oligochaete Lumbriculus variegatus increased in size from approximately 31-46nm, indicating a significant change in the nanoparticle characteristics during exposure.

Preserving the distribution of inorganic arsenic species in groundwater and acid mine drainage samples.

The distribution of inorganic arsenic species must be preserved in the field to eliminate changes caused by metal oxyhydroxide precipitation, photochemical oxidation, and redox reactions. Arsenic species sorb to iron and manganese oxyhydroxide precipitates, and arsenite can be oxidized to arsenate by photolytically produced free radicals in many sample matrices. Several preservatives were evaluated to minimize metal oxyhydroxide precipitation, such as inorganic acids and ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA). EDTA was found to work best for all sample matrices tested. Storing samples in opaque polyethylene bottles eliminated the effects of photochemical reactions. The preservation technique was tested on 71 groundwater and six acid mine drainage samples. Concentrations in groundwater samples reached 720 microg-As/L for arsenite and 1080 microg-As/L for arsenate, and acid mine drainage samples reached 13 000 microg-As/L for arsenite and 3700 microg-As/L for arsenate. The arsenic species distribution in the samples ranged from 0 to 90% arsenite. The stability of the preservation technique was established by comparing laboratory arsenic speciation results for samples preserved in the field to results for subsamples speciated onsite. Statistical analyses indicated that the difference between arsenite and arsenate concentrations for samples preserved with EDTA in opaque bottles and field speciation results were analytically insignificant. The percentage change in arsenite:arsenate ratios for a preserved acid mine drainage sample and groundwater sample during a 3-month period was -5 and +3%, respectively.