Screening of organic pollutants in pet hair samples and the significance of environmental factors.

Organic pollutants (OPs) represent a wide range of chemicals that are potentially harmful for human and wildlife health. Many of these pollutants have been identified as endocrine disruptors that can alter hormonal balance producing adverse biological effects such as neurotoxicity, reproductive disorders, carcinogenicity and hepatotoxicity. For years, hair has been selected as a non-invasive source to assess levels of animal contamination. In the present study, a multiclass screening method for determining about 60 organic pollutants in pet hair was designed and validated for qualitative and quantitative purposes. Concentrations from different classes of organochlorine, and organophosphate pesticides (OCPs, and OPPs), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), polychlorinated biphenyls (NDL-PCBs and DL-PCBs), polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) and organophosphate esters (OPEs) were identified in the selected pet hair samples from Ourense (NW, Spain). We detected most of these pollutants in the selected hair pets. The mean concentrations found ranged from 89 to 6556ng/g for OPEs, from 8.6 to 1031ng/g for PAHs, from 8.6 to 256ng/g for PBDEs, from 29 to 184ng/g for OPPs, from 0.29 to 139 for OCPs, from 0.30 to 59ng/g for NDL-PCBs and from 1.2 to 14ng/g for DL-PCBs. To our knowledge, this is the first study to document the presence of OPs in pets from North-West Spain and it could provide baseline information for future monitoring of OPs in the area.

Follow-up on the characterization of peptidic markers in hair and fur for the identification of common North American species.

RATIONALE: Species identification of hair is routinely done by microscopic analysis. Following previous studies that used protein analysis to characterize species markers in hair and wool, the present work aims at covering a larger number of species and to ultimately offer a method for rapid hair identification in forensics and archaeology. METHODS: Hair is mostly made of alpha-keratins; these proteins have only been sequenced in a handful of species and most animal families are under-represented. Using a methodology developed for the characterization of peptidic markers in tissues such as bone (peptide mass fingerprinting or PMF) and commonly applied on collagen, hair from common North American fur-bearing species was analyzed by MALDI-TOF-MS to obtain peptidic profiles. RESULTS: Alpha-keratin peptides that are typically dominant on peptide mass profiles of hair were chosen as markers. Matching peaks were identified for each species tested and compared to known sequences from related organisms whenever possible. The markers were used to create a flowchart to narrow down identification to the family level. CONCLUSIONS: The methodology was developed on a limited numbers of markers chosen for their variability and reliability on the peptide mass fingerprint. In the absence of genetic sequences, this strategy is a quick way to compare species from a common geographic origin. The work presented here was focused on North American species but could be applied to other animal families.