Screening for Plant Toxins in Honey and Herbal Beverage by Ultrahigh-Performance Liquid Chromatography-Ion Mobility-Quadrupole Time of Flight Mass Spectrometry

The standards of plant toxins were separated by a C18 column with gradient elution with 0.1% formic acid/water (V/V) and 0.1% formic acid/acetonitrile (V/V) as mobile phase and acquired by ion mobility-quadrupole time of flight mass spectrometry (IM-QTOF MS) in positive ion mode. A database of 308 plant toxins including retention time, collision cross-section (CCS) and its fragment ions was established. Honey dissolved in water or herbal beverage was extracted by acetonitrile and purified with PSA sorbent, and then acquired by ultrahigh-performance liquid chromatography IM-QTOFMS. The acquired data were processed by comparing with the database we established to confirm the target compounds. The average recoveries for samples at two levels ranged from 60.6% - 120.1%, with relative standard deviation (n = 6) less than 25%. The limit of quantitation for plant toxins ranged from 1 - 20 μg/kg. The developed screening method was used in determination of honey, herbal beverage and honey flavored tea beverage samples. The results showed that berberine was detected in one honey with 1 μg/kg and caffeine was present in some beverages with the concentration from 200 and 5500 μg/kg. This method could meet the requirement for rapid screening of plant toxins in honey and herbal beverage. It can be used for the quality control of honey and herbal beverage in enterprises or quality inspection departments. It also can be used in the rapid screening of food poisoning.

Experimental study on freezing of liquids under static magnetic field

Freezing processes of several liquids under static magnetic field(SMF) less than 50 mT were investigated. Central temperature of liquid samples held in glass test tubes immersed in a liquid bath was measured and collected. Nucleation temperature and phase transition time were obtained from freezing curves. Normality tests were performed for nucleation temperature of these liquids with/without magnetic field and normality distributions were justified. Analysis of variances was carried out for nucleation temperature of these liquids with magnetic field flux density as the influencing factor. Results showed that no significant difference was found for deionized water with or without SMF. However, differences exist in 0.9% NaCl solution and 5% ethylene glycol solution with and without SMF. Nucleation temperature of 0.9% NaCl with SMF is lower than that without SMF, while its phase transition time is shorter than that without SMF. Nucleation temperature of 5% ethylene glycol with SMF is higher than that without SMF, while its phase transition time is not modified with SMF.

Urinary metabonomics of stomach cancer assessed by rapid resolution liquid chromatography/time-of-flight mass spectrometry

Background Stomach cancer is among the most commonly occurring malignancies worldwide. It would be beneficial to develop a urine-based assay whereby patients with undiagnosed stomach cancer could be screened and their cancer detected in the eadiest stages. Methods A urinary metabonomics method based on ultra-performance liquid chromatography combined with quadruple time-of-flight mass spectrometry was used to analyze urine samples from patients with stomach cancer and healthy controls. Results Statistical analysis revealed a clear separation of patients and healthy controls using the aforementioned methodology. Some significantly changed metabolites were identified. Conclusions Use of the metabonomics method in patients with stomach cancer could effectively detect distinct changes in urinary metabolites and had the capacity to detect cancer; therefore, it may be a valuable tool in earlier diagnosis. Furthermore, the detection and identification of altered metabolites in the current study may help elucidate possible mechanisms involved in stomach cancer.

GLOBAL ANALYSIS OF THE METABOLITES OF CURCUMIN IN RATS BY ULTRA PERFORMANCE LIQUID CHROMATOGRAPHY COUPLED WITH QUADRUPOLE TIME OF-FLIGHT TANDEM MASS SPECTROMETRY

Curcumin,a safe natural yellow pigment with a wide range of pharmacological activities,is used both in herbal drugs and as a food coloring agents.Studies have shown that curcumin would suffer from extensive metabolism in vivoand the predominant metabolic pathways are reduction and conjugation.In order to comprehensively study the metabolism and enrich the metabolic profile of cxurcumin in vivo,we carried out this research.A systematic method with highly sensitive UPLC-Q/TOF-MS was established to analyze different biological samples of rats after

Determination of responses of liquid xenon to low energy electron and nuclear recoils using a PandaX-Ⅱ detector

We present a systematic determination of the responses of PandaX-Ⅱ,a dual phase xenon time projection chamber detector,to low energy recoils.The electron recoil(ER) and nuclear recoil(NR) responses are calibrated,respectively,with injected tritiated methane or 220Rn source,and with 241Am-Be neutron source,in an energy range from 1-25 keV(ER) and 4-80 keV(NR),under the two drift fields,400 and 317 V/cm.An empirical model is used to fit the light yield and charge yield for both types of recoils.The best fit models can describe the calibration data significantly.The systematic uncertainties of the fitted models are obtained via statistical comparison to the data.