Microplastics (MPs) are in all environmental compartments, including atmosphere, terrestrial, and aquatic environments as well as in marine organisms, foods, drinking water, and indoor and outdoor ...environments. MPs can enter the human body through the food chain and contaminated environment. Ingestion, inhalation, and dermal contact are the routes of their entry into the human body. Recent studies reporting the detection of MPs within the human body have raised concern among the scientific community as the knowledge about human exposure is still very limited and their impact on health is not well-understood yet. In this review article, we briefly cover the reports evidencing MP detection within the human body, e.g., stool, placenta, lungs, liver, sputum, breast milk, and blood. A concise synopsis of sample preparation and analysis of such human matrices is also provided. This article also presents a summary of the effect of MPs on human cell lines and human health.
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•Ingestion and inhalation are the main routes for exposure to MPs.•MPs have been found in placenta, feces, colon, lungs, sputum, liver, breast milk, and blood.•Utmost care is required while sample treatment and analysis to avoid contamination.•Some diseases appear to correlate with the presence of MPs.•Human cell line studies and health effects of MPs are briefly presented.
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•Occurrence of pharmaceuticals, personal care products, pesticides and microplastics.•Of 107 contaminants, 40 were in water, 27 in sediments, 17 in soils and 21 in ...plants.•Microplastics ranged from 0.7 to 9 items/L were distributed in all the area.•Average of 10 contaminants simultaneously in each sample.•Chlorpyrifos, diazinon, bifenthrin, caffeine and etoricoxib show risk to biota.
This study assess the presence of pharmaceutical and personal care products (PPCPs) and pesticides in different environmental compartments and microplastics in water of a characteristic lagoon wetland in Saudi Arabia to establish the transport, accumulation and fate of these pollutants in a water-stressed area under high anthropogenic pressure. In water, diazinon (up to 1016 ng L−1), caffeine (up to 20,663 ng L−1), diclofenac (up to 1390 ng L−1) and paracetamol (up to 3069 ng L−1) were at the highest concentrations. The substances with the highest frequency of detection were carbendazim, atorvastatin, caffeine, etoricoxib, lorazepam, metformin, ofloxacin, paracetamol, salicylic acid and tramadol. Considerably less pesticides and PPCPs at concentrations ranging from 0.01 to 126 ng g−1 dry weight (d.w.) were detected in the other matrices (sediment ≫ soil > plants). The concentration of microplastics in water ranged from 0.7 to 7.8 items/L in the Al-Asfar lake and from 1.1 to 9.0 items/L in the Al-Hubail lake. Risk assessment using hazards quotients (HQ) was used to highlight pesticides and PPCPs of major ecological concern that should be closely monitored to avoid adverse effects.
In this study, the occurrence of 12 organophosphorus flame retardants (OPFRs), 64 pesticides, 21 perfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) and 34 pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) in surface ...water, sediments and vegetation collected from seven locations along the South Riyadh and six locations along the Al-Jubail industrial city (Saudi Arabia) were reported. The median of the concentrations of ƩOPFRs, ƩPesticides, ƩPFASs and ƩPPCPs in water was 297, 231, 29.7 and 3794 ng L−1, respectively, in sediments 56.2, 40.4, 5.66 and 419 ng g−1 d.w., in crops for human consumption of 45.6, 42.0, 0.46 and 42.0 ng g−1, in farm crops of 13.4, 57.5, 3.2 and 637 ng g−1, and in natural vegetation of 51.7, 10.3, 1.88 and 1580 ng g−1. Predominant compounds in all matrices were tris-(1,3-dichloro-2-propyl)phosphate (TClPP), acetamiprid, imidacloprid, caffeine, bisphenol A (BPA), diclofenac and ibuprofen. Tris(2-butoxyethyl) phosphate (TBEP), tris-(2-ethylhexyl)phosphate (TPhP), perfluoroctanoic acid (PFOA), perfluoroalkyl sulfonate (PFOS) and paracetamol were also in many samples but at low concentrations. The contaminants' levels showed similar values in both cities. However, pesticide levels were significantly higher in surface water (p < 0.05) and lower in natural vegetation (p < 0.05) of Riyadh than those of Al-Jubail. The risk assessment for the aquatic biota showed that abamectin, diazinon (pesticides), bisphenol A and caffeine (PPCPs) had the highest risk levels. The cumulative risk assessment showed that the contaminant mixture in all water samples is of concern. As far as the risk to human health is concerned, individual contaminants did not show a significant hazard for the population. However, OPFRs and pesticide requires a closed monitoring since % of admissible daily intakes (ADIs) or reference doses (RfD) are high. This is one of the most comprehensive study covering environmental and human risk assessment of emerging contaminants carried out in Saudi Arabia.
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•Of 131 emerging contaminants, 87 belonging to all kinds tested were in the samples.•Content of PPCPs>Pesticides>OPFRs>PFASs except for wild vegetation in Al-Jubail•Significant differences in pesticide content between Riyadh and Al-Jubail samples•Caffeine, bisphenol A, diazinon and abamectin showed the highest ecological risk.•Level of contamination in food does not indicate serious threat to population health.
In this study, water of the channels and ponds that conduct residual water in two most important cities of Saudi Arabia were assessed to ascertain the influence of the population on the occurrence ...and pollution characteristics of microplastics (MPs) (> 20 µm in size). Riyadh has 7.6 million inhabitants and is an urban city even though also have industry while Al-Jubail has only 0.78 and is the biggest industrial city. MPs showed an average of 3.2 items/L in Riyadh and 0.2 items/L in Al-Jubail showing a statistically significant difference between both cities. Sampling with a Turton Tow Net of 20 µm mesh, fibers were dominant in all sites (60%). MPs size was mainly distributed between 80 and 250 µm (60%), and their major colors were white (40%), red (25%) and blue (20%). Infrared spectral analysis revealed that most of the selected particles were identified as MPs of polypropylene and polyethylene (48.3%). The risk assessment was carried out using both the hazard index (HI) and the pollution load index (PLI). The results showed that, in this case, the decisive index is the PLI since the main difference in the MPs characteristics between the two cities is their concentration.
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•MPs concentration was established using a Turton Town net of 20 µm mesh.•Fibers white or transparent with a size < 250 µm were dominant.•Population and socioeconomic characteristics can influence MPs abundance.•The composition of microplastics by FTIR was identified as PE, PP, PS and PET.•Quantities of MPs and toxicity of their components in water showed ecological risk.
The DNA molecules that can be extracted from archaeological and palaeontological remains are often degraded and massively contaminated with environmental microbial material. This reduces the efficacy ...of shotgun approaches for sequencing ancient genomes, despite the decreasing sequencing costs of high‐throughput sequencing (HTS). Improving the recovery of endogenous molecules from the DNA extraction and purification steps could, thus, help advance the characterization of ancient genomes. Here, we apply the three most commonly used DNA extraction methods to five ancient bone samples spanning a ~30 thousand year temporal range and originating from a diversity of environments, from South America to Alaska. We show that methods based on the purification of DNA fragments using silica columns are more advantageous than in solution methods and increase not only the total amount of DNA molecules retrieved but also the relative importance of endogenous DNA fragments and their molecular diversity. Therefore, these methods provide a cost‐effective solution for downstream applications, including DNA sequencing on HTS platforms.
In arid and semi-arid areas the use of treated wastewater for crop irrigation and other agricultural practices, such as the use of pesticides, increase the number of emerging contaminants (ECs) in ...crops. Hazards of these practices to human being are largely unknown since there are few studies yet covering a short range of compounds and most of them under non-realistic conditions. This study aims at assessing this problem that will become global soon in an area of Saudi Arabia heavily affected by the reuse of treated wastewater and pesticide in order to ascertain its scale. The novelty of the study relays in the large number of ECs covered and the variety of crops (cabbage, barley, green beans, eggplants, chili, tomato and zucchini) analysed. Extraction procedure developed provided an appropriate extraction yield (up to 50% of the compounds were recovered within a 70–120% range), with good repeatability (relative standard deviations below 20% in most cases) and sensitivity (LOQ < 25 ng g−1) for the model compounds. Determination by liquid chromatography quadrupole time-of-flight (LC-QqTOF-MS) is able to identify >2000 contaminants. Sixty-four ECs were identified in wastewater but of the sixty-four compounds, six pharmaceuticals (atenolol, caffeine, carbamazepine and its metabolites 10,11-epoxycarbamazepine, gemfibrozil, and naproxen) and seven pesticides (acetamiprid, atrazine deethyl, azoxystrobin, bupirimate, diazinon, malathion, pirimicarb and some of their metabolites) were detected in plants. Furhermore, one metabolite of the ibuprofen (not detected in water or soil), the ibuprofen hexoside was also found in plants. Up to our knowledge, this study demonstrate for the first time the accumulation of ECs in crops irrigated with treated wastewater under real non-controlled environmental conditions.
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•Sensitive LC-QqTOF-MS method successfully identify 64 contaminants in water.•Method's performance verified for 40 compounds in two matrices (cabbage and barley)•Presence of 18 pesticides, pharmaceuticals and/or degradation products in plants verified•Crops present more ECs (7) than soil (5) and at higher concentrations
Abstract
Ever since its emergence in 1984, the field of ancient DNA has struggled to overcome the challenges related to the decay of DNA molecules in the fossil record. With the recent development of ...high-throughput DNA sequencing technologies and molecular techniques tailored to ultra-damaged templates, it has now come of age, merging together approaches in phylogenomics, population genomics, epigenomics, and metagenomics. Leveraging on complete temporal sample series, ancient DNA provides direct access to the most important dimension in evolution—time, allowing a wealth of fundamental evolutionary processes to be addressed at unprecedented resolution. This review taps into the most recent findings in ancient DNA research to present analyses of ancient genomic and metagenomic data.
Recent advances in gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) (ionization sources at atmospheric pressure, fast GC, GCxGC, high resolution mass spectrometry, etc.) have significantly improved the ...capabilities of this technique, traditionally used to determine pesticides. Although liquid chromatography mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) is nowadays preferred, pyrethroids and organochlorine pesticides are more sensitive by GC-MS and a significant number of other pesticides work well by both techniques. Here, we critically review the development, instrumentation, approaches and applications of GC-MS, focusing on the analysis of pesticide residues published between 2000 and 2019 along with outstanding pioneer contributions, with special emphasis on those published after 2010. This review attempts to fill a void of information on the state-of-art of GC-MS for pesticide residue determination, describing the pros and cons of the different approaches, and the main applications.
•New advances in GC-MS focus on pesticide residue determination.•Improving separation speed by fast GC and resolving power by GC x GC.•High sensitive APCI ionization for labile pesticides and further MS/MS.•Improved identification for metabolites, unexpected or unknowns by HRMS.•Challenges and future perspectives of GC-MS in pesticide determination are addressed.
The occurrence of pesticide residues in fruits was determined by a target method for 62 analytes and a wide scope screening method against a database of 500 pesticides. Limits of quantification ...(LOQs) were from 0.5 to 6.3 μg kg−1 for the target method and from 0.5 to 119 μg kg−1 for the non-target. Thirty samples: dates, apples, oranges, tangerines, lemons and grapefruits were selected because their high consumption, except lemons and grapefruits that were to cover all citrus fruits. Using the target method, 15 compounds (mostly insecticides and fungicides) out of 62 pesticides (organophosphorus, carbamates, pyrethroids, chloroacetanilides, triazines, triazoles, imidazoles, etc.) were detected. Residues were in 100% of the samples, 80% contained at or below maximum residue limits (MRLs), and 20% above. Non-target method identified several additional pesticides (cypronil, fludioxonil, boscalid and pyraclostrobin in apples). The highest acute risk were for acrinathrin, chlorpyrifos and imazalil with estimated short-term intake (ESTI) > 100% acute reference dose (ARfD), followed by imidacloprid and thiabendazole with ESTI ≥ 70% ARfD. The higher chronic risk were for ethion and fluvalinate with estimated daily intakes (EDIs) of 8.8 and 1.5% of the admissible daily intake (ADI), respectively.
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•Pesticide residues determined in fruits from Saudi Arabia.•Target and non-target analysis by LC-QqQ-MS/MS and LC-QqTOF-MS/MS applied.•Insecticides and fungicides showed the highest concentrations and frequency.•LC-QqTOF-MS/MS attains detection of several additional pesticides.•Risk assessment shown safety for consumer but need of further research.
The horse was domesticated only 5.5 KYA, thousands of years after dogs, cattle, pigs, sheep, and goats. The horse nonetheless represents the domestic animal that most impacted human history; ...providing us with rapid transportation, which has considerably changed the speed and magnitude of the circulation of goods and people, as well as their cultures and diseases. By revolutionizing warfare and agriculture, horses also deeply influenced the politico-economic trajectory of human societies. Reciprocally, human activities have circled back on the recent evolution of the horse, by creating hundreds of domestic breeds through selective programs, while leading all wild populations to near extinction. Despite being tightly associated with humans, several aspects in the evolution of the domestic horse remain controversial. Here, we review recent advances in comparative genomics and paleogenomics that helped advance our understanding of the genetic foundation of domestic horses.
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