The Study Group on Hospital Hygiene of the Italian Society of Hygiene, Preventive Medicine and Public Health (GISIO-SItI) and the Local Health Authority of Foggia, Apulia, Italy, after the National ...Convention "Safe water in healthcare facilities" held in Vieste-Pugnochiuso on 27-28 May 2016, present the "Vieste Charter", drawn up in collaboration with experts from the National Institute of Health and the Ministry of Health. This paper considers the risk factors that may affect the water safety in healthcare facilities and reports the current regulatory frameworks governing the management of installations and the quality of the water. The Authors promote a careful analysis of the risks that characterize the health facilities, for the control of which specific actions are recommended in various areas, including water safety plans; approval of treatments; healthcare facilities responsibility, installation and maintenance of facilities; multidisciplinary approach; education and research; regional and national coordination; communication.
The brook chub, Squalius lucumonis (Bianco, 1983), is an endemic endangered species inhabiting the rivers of Central Italy. Being subject to hybridizations with other cyprinids, particularly the ...congeneric S. squalus (Bonaparte, 1837), genetic overestimation can emerge when molecular markers are applied and mtDNA barcoding is not sufficient to ensure a correct attribution, due to its maternal inheritance. In this perspective, a polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) approach on rDNA is proposed to rapidly discriminate S. lucumonis from nine other cyprinids. For its capacity to identify hybrids of these species with S. lucumonis, this method should be considered as a fundamental tool to be applied prior to the application of other molecular markers in extensive genetic characterizations for phylogenetic, phylogeographic, population and management analyses.
The concern on the presence of pesticides in Italian water resources historically broke out around 1980 after severe episodes of ambient, raw water and drinking water contamination due to some ...herbicides, atrazine (ATR), its metabolites desethylatrazine (DEA) and deisopropylatrazine (DIA), simazine, cyanazine, bentazone, molinate, which affected mainly the maize, grain and rice producing floodplains and karst areas of the northern Regions. Due to the risks of human exposure, in the early 1990 the use of atrazine was banned in Italy and was replaced by terbuthylazine (TERB). In a few years, TERB became a chemical of concern, together with its main metabolite desethylterbuthylazine (DET), because of alerting detections in surface and groundwater resources. Up to now, the risk of contamination of water resources by TERB, DET, DEA and, in some extent ATR, is of relevance in Italy due to their present and past wide employment in agriculture, the discharges or seepages in particularly vulnerable areas, their unfavorable intrinsic properties, e.g. poor sorption and high persistence, their mobility by drift, leaching and runoff in vadose zones, aquifers and surface water. So, unsurprisingly, results from national monitoring of ambient water and raw water indicate that TERB, DET, DEA and residual ATR, despite its withdrawal, are detected at remarkable frequencies and, sometimes, at levels higher than pesticide quality standards under the Italian Decrees for the protection of surface water (specifically, raw waters doomed at the drinking water abstraction), groundwater and drinking water (tap water), that is 0.1–0.5μg/l for individual pesticides and for total pesticides, respectively, including relevant metabolites. On the other hand, in these last years, the control measures in drinking water production adopted by the waterworks Companies and the regional and central health Authorities, also in the view of the recent WHO approaches under the Water Safety Plans, ensure that levels of any pesticide residue (also involving TERB, DET, DEA, ATR) in finished tap water meet parametric values for pesticides. Therefore, in these last years, no derogation to the parametric values for drinking water has been required. The aim of this paper is to contribute to widen the knowledge on the water impact of these important water pollutants giving sound details on present usages, levels and frequencies of detection in water bodies in Italy, on their key chemiodynamic properties, e.g. soil half-lives (DT50) and soil to organic carbon partition (Koc) available in the open literature, particularly for TERB metabolites, and some details on legal provision adopted at the national level. In fact, a more effective protection of water supplies, particularly against TERB and DET, has been pursued in the late 2000s by the Italian Health Ministry through the adoption of consistent provisions aimed at mitigating emissions of TERB in routine agricultural activities, and by the Italian Ministry of the Environment through the adoption of specific Environmental Quality Standards for TERB and its metabolite DET, ATR, SIM for the protection of surface waters.
► Terbuthylazine, triazines and metabolites are contaminants of Italian water bodies. ► High levels and frequencies of detection are found in the Po river watershed Regions. ► Parametric values under Italian Water Decrees for pesticides are often trespassed. ► Triazine presence depends on high sales, intensive farming, intrinsic properties. ► Legal provisions undertaken by Italian Authorities are briefly described.
An improved method for the simultaneous determination of underivatized biogenic amines, cadaverine, putrescine, spermidine, histamine, tyramine and some amino acids precursors, histidine and ...tyrosine, in food products, based on ion-exchange chromatography (IC) with integrated pulsed amperometric detection (IPAD) has been developed. The method was successfully used for the analysis of biogenic amines and amino acids in food both of vegetable (kiwi,
Actinidia chinensis) and animal origin, (fish, pilchard), as well as in fermented foods, such as cheese (Emmenthal) and dry sausages (salami). The method was also successfully used to study the changes in biogenic amines during the ripening of dry fermented sausages (salami). The analytes were extracted from foods with perchloric acid and the extracts were purified by liquid–liquid partition using
n-hexane. Determination of biogenic amines was performed through cation-exchange chromatography with isocratic elution and IPAD. The detection limits for the analytes under investigation were found to range from 1.25 to 2.50 ng, at a signal-to-noise ratio of 3:1. Average recoveries ranged from 85.5 to 97.4% and R.S.D. values ranged from 3.4 to 8.8. The proposed method offers a number of advantages over our previous IPAD method, such as the application to a larger number of analytes and matrices, a simpler extraction procedure and clean-up, isocratic elution using low acid and base concentrations, an improved chromatographic separation and a lower detection limit.
Genetic analyses allowed management and conservative programmes specifically designed for biodiversity conservation purposes. To date, no information is available for the
N
e definition of any ...Italian northern pike population, because of their wide, highly fragmented, distribution. Low gene flow levels may have caused some of the health population problems emerging from professional fisheries data, underlining a marked reduction of these populations. This paper reports the first estimate of genetic
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e of the Lake Trasimeno's northern pike, by means of microsatellites data, over the last four decades compared with five other significant Italian populations.
N
e values were evaluated through specific software and
θ estimator. The
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e results confirm that, despite a marked reduction between 1966 and 1997 and a less than optimal status, the Trasimeno population shows a positive trend in its health status, presumably due to proper management programmes. Considerations on the biological conservation and management of this pike population are also reported.
This paper describes the assembling and optimization of an electrochemical biosensor for the determination of biogenic amines (putrescine, cadaverine, histamine, tyramine, spermidine, spermine, ...tryptamine) commonly present in food products, and its application to salted anchovy samples. Variations of the amine content in anchovies during ripening time were measured both with the biosensor and ion chromatography with integrated pulsed amperometric detection (IC-IPAD). The probe is based on a platinum electrode which senses the hydrogen peroxide produced by the reaction catalysed by the enzyme diamine oxidase (DAO), purified from commercial seeds of cicer and immobilized on the electrode surface. Parameters such as enzyme immobilization and pH have been studied and optimised in order to obtain similar sensitivity for all the amines tested. The immobilization of the enzyme on a nylon-net membrane, using glutaraldehyde as cross-linking agent, and phosphate buffer at pH 8.0 were selected. The detection limit was 5 × 10
−7 mol litre
−1. The linear range common to the amines tested was observed from 1 × 10
−6 to 5 × 10
−5 mol litre
−1. The effect of potentially interfering compounds was also evaluated. Underivatized biogenic amines such as putrescine, cadaverine, histamine, tyramine and spermidine were also detected with the IC-IPAD method. Changes in the concentration of biogenic amine content in salted anchovy samples, measured with the biosensor and IC-IPAD methods, exhibited the same trend and demonstrated that the biosensor is a useful tool to monitor the variation of the total amine content in fish during storage.
The Etruscan chub Squalius lucumonis (Bianco, 1983) is an endemic endangered fish inhabiting the lakes and rivers of Central Italy. A microsatellite-enriched genomic library was constructed in order ...to develop microsatellite loci and eight polymorphic loci were isolated from this species to assess the level of genetic diversity in fifty individuals of S. lucumonis collected in the Umbria Region. The number of alleles ranged from four (Sluc12) to 18 (Sluc4). Observed and expected heterozygosity per locus ranged from 0.05 (Sluc12) to 0.80 (Sluc4; Sluc7 and Sluc11) and from 0.22 (Sluc12) to 0.90 (Sluc4), respectively. Furthermore, these loci were tested on ten other Cyprinidae species and four freshwater fish species belonging to other families. Successful cross-priming amplifications were obtained for several species of Cyprinidae, whereas no positive results were obtained for other species. The availability of the reported microsatellite loci will facilitate population structure investigations of these species aiming to phylogeographical approaches and conservation strategies.
A recent Italian regulatory level for microcystins (MCs) in drinking water was set at 1.0μg/L, intended as the sum of all variants that can be determined using commercially available standards. A ...selective multi-residue method for analyzing twelve variants of MCs (MC-RR, MC-YR, MC-LR, MC-LA, MC-LW, MC-LF, MC-LY, D-Asp3-MC-RR, D-Asp3-MC-LR, MC-WR, MC-HilR, MC-HtyR) in surface and drinking waters was optimized and validated in accordance with the Italian implementation of the Drinking Water Directive 98/83/EC. The proposed method was robust as proved by using nodularin as quality control, with inter-matrices reproducibility better than 17% and matrix effects not significantly dependent among different water samples. LODs were in the range of 0.003–0.030μg/L for all the analytes, allowing the quantitative analysis of selected MCs at levels lower than 1/10 of the proposed new Italian parametric values. The method was tailored for the routine analysis of MCs in the frame of risk management related to MCs production during toxic algal blooms.
The optimized analytical protocol was then applied to the analysis of water samples collected in Occhito Lake (Apulia, Italy), used as a source of drinking water, after an extraordinary bloom of Planktothrix rubescens. In October 2010, the presence of MC-HtyR was detected here with maximum concentration level of 0.025μg/L. To our knowledge, this is the first report on MC-HtyR presence, obtained with a confirmatory method, associated to a P. rubescens bloom in surface waters.
•Production of the MC-HtyR variant of microcystins is here confirmed for Plankthothrix rubescens.•An LC-MS based method for routinely analysis of 12 microcystins was validated.•The risk assessment related to exposure to microcystins in freshwaters was improved.
A new approach using combined liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry (LC–MS) with ionspray ionization is proposed for the direct detection of known and new toxins in mussels and phytoplankton. A ...first stage reversed-phase, negative ion mode, selected ion monitoring (SIM) LC–MS analysis was performed in order to detect DSP toxins in the same chromatographic run with a total run time of 20 min. The toxins analysed included yessotoxin (YTX), okadaic acid (OA) and four of its analogues, dinophysistoxins (i.e. DTX-1, DTX-2, DTX-2B, DTX-2C), and pectenotoxins (PTXs), involving PTX-2, two PTX-2 secoacids (PTX-2SAs), PTX-2SA, 7-
epi-PTX-2SA, and AC1, the three isomeric toxins structurally related to PTX-2 recently identified in Irish phytoplankton. Positive samples can, therefore, be analyzed through reversed-phase, positive ion mode SIM LC–MS, in order to perform complete chromatographic separations of the structurally related toxins within the OA and PTX groups. Detailed toxin profiles of a number of toxic phytoplankton and shellfish, from different marine areas, were easily obtained through the new approach. PTX-2SAs and AC1 were found in phytoplankton and shellfish from Ireland as well as in Italian shellfish. Moreover, for the first time there was evidence of the presence of PTX-2 in Irish phytoplankton. YTX was present in Italian shellfish. Four isomeric OA toxins were detected in samples from Ireland with OA, DTX-2 and DTX-2B present in shellfish, and OA, DTX-2 and DTX-2C in phytoplankton. In contrast, OA was the only toxin from this group to be detected in Italian mussels.
The two freshwater sponges Ephydatia fluviatilis and Ephydatia mülleri belong to the widespread Spongillidae family. Their morphological tracts are very similar and can be distinguished mainly on the ...basis of their gemmuloscleres. However, when gemmules are absent it is essential to have an unambiguous species attribution for a population genetic study based on fresh tissues and historical collections. This article reports a simple Polymerase Chain Reaction-Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) analysis, applied to DNA extracted from both gemmules and fresh tissues in order to discriminate between the two congeneric E. fluviatilis and E. mülleri. Such a biomolecular method is based on the discriminative enzymes' digestion of each of the three amplified fragments 5.8S-ITS2-28S, D3 domain of the 28S subunit and COI. Two restriction enzymes were tested for a 620-642 bp fragment of 5.8S-ITS2-28S and for a 342 bp fragment of the D3 domain of the 28S, one restriction enzyme was tested for a 681 bp fragment codifying for COI. Obtained digestion patterns were diagnostic for each of the two species, providing a relatively simple, fast and cheap method for species attribution compared to sequencing.
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