Presence of Epsilon HCH Together with Four Other HCH Isomers in Drinking Water, Groundwater and Soil in a Former Lindane Production Site.

In the frame of a long-standing action of remediation of industrial soil and prevention of water pollution, a monitoring of the drinking water of the Italian town of Colleferro was performed by the ISS. The town has 22,000 inhabitants and is adjacent to a big industrial site where HCH was produced. Industrial wastes were buried in the site, eventually contaminating superficial aquifers, while a canal serving the industrial plant spread the contamination into the Sacco river and thence to the agricultural soil and to cow milk. The contamination of superficial aquifers engendered fears of pollution of the deep aquifers whence the town draws its drinking water. The results of the monitoring indicate that there is no risk for the population from consumption of the water. In one of the wells the ε-HCH was the main isomer reaching a concentration of 66 ng/L: so far the presence of this isomer in water was never reported. The paper also summarily reports the main features of soil and superficial groundwater pollution in the area and briefly describes the main actions taken by the authorities.

Existence of hybrid structures in cationic liposome/DNA complexes revealed by their interaction with plasma proteins.

The self-assembling of cationic liposomes (CLs) and DNA can give rise to a variety of nanostructures and morphologies. Multilamellar complexes are made of DNA intercalated between opposing lipid bilayers, while clusters formed by intact vesicles may exist as 'beads-on-a-string' (i.e. CLs attached to a string of DNA). Precise knowledge of the structure and morphology of complexes is relevant in many biological important processes such as gene delivery. Here dynamic light scattering, zeta potential, synchrotron small angle X-ray scattering and one-dimensional polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis were performed to investigate the equilibrium structure, morphology and interactions with plasma proteins of lipoplexes made of the cationic lipid (3ß-[N-(N',N'-dimethylaminoethane)-carbamoyl])-cholesterol (DC-Chol), the zwitterionic lipid dioleoylphosphatidylethanolamine (DOPE) and DNA. Results show that DC-Chol-DOPE/DNA complexes are multilamellar systems with DNA protected by cationic lipids. On the other hand, the 'protein corona' associated to lipoplexes after interaction with human plasma was found to be much richer in basic immunoglobulins gamma proteins (Ig-Gs) than that of pure lipid vesicles in the absence of DNA. According to the most recent evidences reported in the literature, this finding would suggest the existence of hybrid structures made of multilamellar complexes either stuck together by DNA or coexisting with DNA-loaded intact vesicles. Because surface properties of lipoplexes may determine their interaction with cells and tissues, these results may be important for predicting biological responses in vivo.

Phenilpropanoate identification in young wheat plants by liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry: monomeric and dimeric compounds.

Metabolomic approach has become a very important tool for determining the actual gene expression and protein activity. Metabolism via the shikimate pathway in plant gives rise to a large number of aromatic compounds, including p-hydroxycinnamates, which are mainly associated with their cell walls in complex structures, ester-linked to heteroxilans. In this work, ferulate dehydrodimers and related compounds were extracted from the cell walls of young lyophilized wheat plants with 2 mol/l NaOH for 4 h at 25 °C under N(2). After solid phase extraction, samples were analysed by high-performance liquid chromatography-quadrupole-linear ion trap tandem mass spectrometry with the electrospray source operating in negative mode. Nineteen dehydrodiferulates, 2 hydrate forms, 3 oxo- forms, 2 decarboxilated forms and 1 dihydroxysinapate, were identified by mass spectra interpretation. In addition, five mixed dehydrodimers of ferulic-sinapic, ferulic-coumaric and ferulic-syringic acids were also identified. Reproducibility of peak areas was usually better than 10% but some minor components which may be procedural artefacts, although relatively mild conditions were used.