Aflatoxin B1 Occurrence in Children under the Age of Five's Food Products and Aflatoxin M1 Exposure Assessment and Risk Characterization of Arab Infants through Consumption of Infant Powdered Formula: A Lebanese Experience.

Aflatoxin M1 (AFM1) is a salient metabolite that can be used to assess Aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) exposure in humans and animals. The carcinogenic potency of AFB1 and AFM1 was severely reported. The aims of this study were (1) to survey the contamination level of AFM1 in the most traded infant powdered formula brands (IPF) (n = 42) along with the AFB1 level in under 5's children food brands (biscuits, cornflakes, and cereals) (n = 42) and (2) to assess the estimated daily intake (EDI), the hazard quotient (HQ) and the margin of exposure (MOE) of AFM1 among infants (0-12 months) in Lebanon. All of the samples were analyzed using ELISA technique. AFB1 was below detection limit in all of the children's food brands samples. Out of 42 IPF samples 9.5% were AFM1-positive in the range of 29.54-140.16 ng/L and exceeded the maximum tolerable limit (MTL) set by the European commission (25 ng/kg). The overall average contamination level was 5.72 ± 0.014 ng/L. The EDI of AMF1 for male was in the range of 0.37-0.78 ng/kg/b.w./day and 0.40-0.87 ng/kg/b.w./day for females. Similarly, the HQ calculation resulted in an average of 3.05 for males and 3.28 for females. MOE calculations were far lower from 10,000 in both genders which indicates a high risk of genotoxicity and carcinogenicity. Our findings show that AFM1's EDI, HQ and MOE scored high among Lebanese infants. As infants consume more IPF relative to their body weight, the persistence of IPF with high AFM1 levels threatens their health. Thus, infant's exposure risk to AFM1 in IPF should be a continuous focus of attention.

Innovative SPE-LC-MS/MS technique for the assessment of 63 pharmaceuticals and the detection of antibiotic-resistant-bacteria: A case study natural water sources in Lebanon.

A powerful analytical method for simultaneous determination of 63 pharmaceuticals and some metabolites in aqueous samples has been developed. The list of compounds amenable to the methods includes different therapeutic classes belonging to antibiotics, stimulants, antidepressants, mucolytics, and antiparasites. The method involves concentration and clean up by an offline solid phase extraction SPE followed by liquid chromatography coupled to tandem mass spectrometry (LC-ESI-MS/MS). The recovery of the target compounds from water samples was most efficient on Waters Oasis HLB SPE cartridge, while acetonitrile/water (60/40) was shown to be the most suitable solvent for desorbing the compounds from SPE. In addition, acidification of samples prior to SPE was optimized to enhance the recovery of the compounds. In terms of method validation, the recoveries of analytes ranged from 68% to 134%. Repeatability and intermediate precision were <11% and 14%, respectively. The method detection limits ranged from 2.3ngL-1 to 94.3ngL-1. An optimized method was applied in a monitoring program to study the occurrence of pharmaceuticals to more than hundred samples collected from rivers, lakes, fountains, and wells overall Lebanon from April to June 2016. Caffeine, erythromycin and its degradation forms, were the most frequently detected compounds at levels reaching >10,000ngL-1 and 2000ngL-1, respectively. Moreover, bacterial analysis showed that the samples were contaminated by Escherichia coli (23%), intestinal Enterococcus (48%) and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (27%). Therefore, in order to evaluate if a correlation exists between finding antibiotics in water samples and the development of resistant-bacteria, an antimicrobial susceptibility test was conducted to the identified isolates using disk diffusion method. Multiple-antibiotic-resistant strains in both intestinal Enterococcus and E. coli were evident in many water samples, while P. aeruginosa was resistant to only one studied antibiotic.