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Improved method for the determination of endocrine-disrupting chemicals in urine of school-age children using microliquid–liquid extraction and UHPLC-MS/MS

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Abstract

The presence of endocrine-disrupting chemicals in our daily life is increasing every day and, by extension, human exposure and the consequences thereof. Among these substances are bisphenols and parabens. Urine is used to analyze the exposure. The determination of 12 bisphenol homologues and 6 parabens is proposed. A procedure based on a method previously developed by our research group in 2014 is improved. The extraction yield is higher, because the new protocol is 5 times more efficient. Also, a comparison between calibration with pure standards and matrix calibration, to calculate the matrix effect, was also made. A high grade of matrix effect for all analytes was observed. In terms of validation, the limits of detection (LOD) were between 0.03 and 0.3 ng mL−1 and limits of quantification (LOQ) 0.1 to 1.0 ng mL−1, respectively, and the recovery is higher than 86.4% and lower than 113.6%, with a RSD lower than 13.5% in all cases. A methodology for accurate and sensitive quantification of bisphenol homologues together with parabens in human urine using UHPLC-MS/MS was developed. The method was successfully applied to 30 urine samples from children.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Fundación para la Investigación Biosanitaria de Andalucía Oriental – Alejandro Otero (FIBAO) who give the author IMR the possibility to participate in this work.

Funding

The Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports granted a pre-doctoral fellowship to YGO (FPU19/05989). This work was funded by the Spanish Government, with joint funding from FEDER-ISCIII PI20/01278 and the Andalusia Government-FEDER, projects PE-0250–2019 and P18-RT-4247. The results presented in this work are part from the doctoral thesis of IMR, Analytical Chemistry Doctorate Program of the University of Granada.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Analytical Chemistry, University of Granada, 18071, Granada, Spain

    Inmaculada Moscoso-Ruiz, María del Carmen Gómez-Regalado & Alberto Zafra-Gómez

  2. Department of Nutrition and Food Science, University of Granada, 18071, Granada, Spain

    Inmaculada Moscoso-Ruiz, Yolanda Gálvez-Ontiveros, María Giles-Mancilla & Ana Rivas

  3. Instituto de Investigación Biosanitaria ibs.GRANADA, Granada, Spain

    Inmaculada Moscoso-Ruiz, Yolanda Gálvez-Ontiveros, Ana Rivas & Alberto Zafra-Gómez

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  1. Inmaculada Moscoso-Ruiz
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  2. Yolanda Gálvez-Ontiveros
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  3. María Giles-Mancilla
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  6. Alberto Zafra-Gómez
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Contributions

IMR, investigation, methodology, and writing — original draft. YGO, investigation, methodology, and writing — original draft. MGM, methodology and writing — original draft. MCGR, methodology and writing — original draft. AR, writing — review and editing, supervision, and funding acquisition. AZG, writing — review and editing, supervision, and funding acquisition.

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Correspondence to Alberto Zafra-Gómez.

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The present study has been approved by the ethics committees of the University of Granada and of the Provincial Biomedical Research of Granada (CEI), Spain. The study has been performed in accordance with the ethical standards. Also, all subjects gave written informed consent and had parental permission to participate.

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Moscoso-Ruiz, I., Gálvez-Ontiveros, Y., Giles-Mancilla, M. et al. Improved method for the determination of endocrine-disrupting chemicals in urine of school-age children using microliquid–liquid extraction and UHPLC-MS/MS. Anal Bioanal Chem 414, 6681–6694 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-022-04231-z

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