Tissue distribution of rare earth elements in wild, commercial and backyard rabbits.

Rare Earth Elements (REEs), La, Ce, Pr, Nd, Sm, Eu, Gd, Tb, Dy, Ho, Er, Tm, Yb, Lu, Sc, and Y, & two actinides, Th and U were assessed in muscle and liver tissues of wild, backyard and commercially raised rabbits through ICP-MS. Higher concentrations were found in liver in comparison to muscle tissue. Liver of wild rabbits accumulates all studied elements beyond Tm. Backyard rabbits do not show any statistically significant accumulation while commercial accumulate all beyond La, Ce, Pr, Nd, Gd and Tb. Wild rabbits were with the highest amounts for most of these elements. The different living and rearing environments of wild, backyard and commercial rabbits may affect accumulation, fate and transfer of REEs in rabbits' tissues. A dataset for establishing reference values of REEs in Lemnos island wild rabbits' is shown and the literature gap on safety limits for REEs is discussed.

Game meat authentication through rare earth elements fingerprinting.

Accurate labelling of meat (e.g. wild versus farmed, geographical and genetic origin, organic versus conventional, processing treatment) is important to inform the consumers about the products they buy. Meat and meat products declared as game have higher commercial value making them target to fraudulent labelling practices and replacement with non-game meat. We have developed and validated a new method for authentication of wild rabbit meat using elemental metabolomics approach. Elemental analysis was performed using rapid ultra-trace multi-element measurement by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). Elemental signatures showed excellent ability to discriminate the wild rabbit from non-wild rabbit meat. Our results demonstrate the usefulness of metabolic markers -rare earth signatures, as well as other trace element signatures for game meat authentication.

Multi-residue analysis of pesticides, plant hormones, veterinary drugs and mycotoxins using HILIC chromatography - MS/MS in various food matrices.

One of the recent trends in Analytical Chemistry is the development of economic, quick and easy hyphenated methods to be used in a field that includes analytes of different classes and physicochemical properties. In this work a multi-residue method was developed for the simultaneous determination of 28 xenobiotics (polar and hydrophilic) using hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography technique (HILIC) coupled with triple quadrupole mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) technology. The scope of the method includes plant growth regulators (chlormequat, daminozide, diquat, maleic hydrazide, mepiquat, paraquat), pesticides (cyromazine, the metabolite of the fungicide propineb PTU (propylenethiourea), amitrole), various multiclass antibiotics (tetracyclines, sulfonamides quinolones, kasugamycin and mycotoxins (aflatoxin B1, B2, fumonisin B1 and ochratoxin A). Isolation of the analytes from the matrix was achieved with a fast and effective technique. The validation of the multi-residue method was performed at the levels: 10 µg/kg and 100 µg/kg in the following representative substrates: fruits-vegetables (apples, apricots, lettuce and onions), cereals and pulses (flour and chickpeas), animal products (milk and meat) and cereal based baby foods. The method was validated taking into consideration EU guidelines and showed acceptable linearity (r ≥ 0.99), accuracy with recoveries between 70 and 120% and precision with RSD ≤ 20% for the majority of the analytes studied. For the analytes that presented accuracy and precision values outside the acceptable limits the method still is able to serve as a semi-quantitative method. The matrix effect, the limits of detection and quantification were also estimated and compared with the current EU MRLs (Maximum Residue Levels) and FAO/WHO MLs (Maximum Levels) or CXLs (Codex Maximum Residue Limits). The combined and expanded uncertainty of the method for each analyte per substrate, was also estimated.