A salting-out assisted liquid-liquid extraction method for 25 emerging pesticides in follicular fluid.

Emerging pesticides of neonicotinoids (NEOs) and "Universal Pesticides" (UPs) are a growing global concern due to their growing commercial importance and potential risks to human health. The currently available analytical methods for these pesticides in biomonitoring were usually tailored for limited number of analytes, or were time consuming and costly. In this study, an efficient and sensitive method for the analysis of 16 NEOs and nine UPs in human follicular fluid (FF) was developed by using a salting-out assisted liquid-liquid extraction (SALLE) method and liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). Method performance was evaluated by calibration linearity (r > 0.99), sensitivity at limits of quantification (0.01-0.50 ng/mL), accuracy at relative recoveries (81-117%) and precision at relative standard deviations (≤16%). The developed method was further validated by analyzing 21 human FF samples that were collected from a hospital in Guangzhou, China. Among the 25 study analytes, two NEOs and six UPs had their detection rates over 85% and medians at 0.048-0.808 ng/mL in the FF samples. Considering the well-known toxicity of these pesticides and their metabolites, it is urgent to figure out exposure profiles of study pesticides and potential reproductive risk for women. To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to develop and apply the SALLE method in the extraction of 16 NEOs and nine UPs simultaneously in human FF.

Occurrence of multiple bisphenol S analogues in children from Shantou, China.

Emerging bisphenol S analogues (BPSs) have gained their application perspectives to replace bisphenol A (BPA) and BPA analogues (BPAs). However, the extent of human exposure and potential health risk from BPSs is rarely known yet. We hypothesized that children living in Shantou, China, a well-known e-waste recycling city, may expose to emerging BPSs together with BPA and BPAs. In this study, BPA, six commonly used BPAs and 11 emerging BPSs were determined simultaneously in 240 urine samples collected from children residing in Shantou. BPA, BPS, bisphenol F, bisphenol AF and three BPSs of 2,4'-bis(hydroxyphenyl)sulfone, 4-((4-(allyloxy)phenyl)sulfonyl)phenol and diphenylsulfone (DPS) were the urinary predominant bisphenols with detection frequencies of 67-100% in the children. BPA was found at the highest median concentration (3.36 µg/g creatinine) followed by BPS (0.313) and DPS (0.187). It is interesting to find that the girls and children in the younger group (2 ≤ age < 5) had consistently higher concentrations of the seven dominant bisphenols than the boys and these of the older group (5 ≤ age ≤ 10), respectively. The children with under/overweight suffered higher burdens of bisphenol exposure based on medians of estimated daily intakes. Association analysis results indicated that the Shantou children exposed themselves to multiple BPSs along with BPA and BPAs from assumed consumer products and/or contaminated environments.