Assessing the protection of the nanomaterial workforce.

Responsible development of any technology, including nanotechnology, requires protecting workers, the first people to be exposed to the products of the technology. In the case of nanotechnology, this is difficult to achieve because in spite of early evidence raising health and safety concerns, there are uncertainties about hazards and risks. The global response to these concerns has been the issuance by authoritative agencies of precautionary guidance to strictly control exposures to engineered nanomaterials (ENMs). This commentary summarizes discussions at the "Symposium on the Health Protection of Nanomaterial Workers" held in Rome (25 and 26 February 2015). There scientists and practitioners from 11 countries took stock of what is known about hazards and risks resulting from exposure to ENMs, confirmed that uncertainties still exist, and deliberated on what it would take to conduct a global assessment of how well workers are being protected from potentially harmful exposures.

Differential denaturation of serum proteome reveals a significant amount of hidden information in complex mixtures of proteins.

UNLABELLED: Recently developed proteomic technologies allow to profile thousands of proteins within a high-throughput approach towards biomarker discovery, although results are not as satisfactory as expected. In the present study we demonstrate that serum proteome denaturation is a key underestimated feature; in fact, a new differential denaturation protocol better discriminates serum proteins according to their electrophoretic mobility as compared to single-denaturation protocols. Sixty nine different denaturation treatments were tested and the 3 most discriminating ones were selected (TRIDENT analysis) and applied to human sera, showing a significant improvement of serum protein discrimination as confirmed by MALDI-TOF/MS and LC-MS/MS identification, depending on the type of denaturation applied. Thereafter sera from mice and patients carrying cutaneous melanoma were analyzed through TRIDENT. Nine and 8 protein bands were found differentially expressed in mice and human melanoma sera, compared to healthy controls (p<0.05); three of them were found, for the first time, significantly modulated: α2macroglobulin (down-regulated in melanoma, p<0.001), Apolipoprotein-E and Apolipoprotein-A1 (both up-regulated in melanoma, p<0.04), both in mice and humans. The modulation was confirmed by immunological methods. Other less abundant proteins (e.g. gelsolin) were found significantly modulated (p<0.05). CONCLUSIONS: i) serum proteome contains a large amount of information, still neglected, related to proteins folding; ii) a careful serum denaturation may significantly improve analytical procedures involving complex protein mixtures; iii) serum differential denaturation protocol highlights interesting proteomic differences between cancer and healthy sera.

Serum low-molecular-weight protein fractionation for biomarker discovery.

Protein biomarkers provide the key diagnostic information for the detection of disease, risk of disease progression, and a patient's likely response to drug therapy. Potential biomarkers exist in biofluids, such as serum, urine, and cerebrospinal fluid. Unfortunately, discovering and validating protein biomarkers are hindered by the presence of high-molecular-weight proteins, such as serum albumin and immunoglobulins, which comprise 90% of the proteins present in these samples. High-abundance, high-molecular-weight proteins mask the low-molecular-weight (LMW) proteins and peptides using conventional protein detection methods. Candidate biomarkers are believed to exist in very low concentrations and comprise less than 1% of serum proteins, and may be highly labile as well. Therefore, it is imperative to isolate and enrich LMW proteins from complex mixtures for biomarker discovery. This chapter describes a continuous -elution electrophoresis method, based on molecular weight sieving, to isolate specific molecular weight fractions for mass spectrometric, western blotting, or protein array analysis.

CLP application to nanomaterials: a specific aspect.

This paper aims at describing some relevant aspects related to the classification, labelling and packaging of nanomaterials. Concerns have been raised about potential adverse effects to humans or the environment as result of impacts of nanomaterials. The new Regulation (EC) no. 1272/2008 on classification, labelling and packaging of substances and mixtures (CLP) does not contain any specific definition or provision related to nanomaterials nevertheless they are covered by the definition of substance set in the Regulation. It is recognized that different particle sizes or forms of the same substance can have different classification. Thus, if substances are placed on the market both at nanoscale and as bulk, a separate classification and labelling may be required if the available data on the intrinsic properties indicate a difference in hazard class between the two forms. CLP Regulation requires the manufacturer or importer to ensure that the information used to classify relates to the forms or physical states in which the substance is placed on the market and in which it can reasonably be expected to be used. Moreover, CLP demands testing relating to physical hazards to be performed if such information is missing or not adequate to conclude on classification. Further developments of the CLP guidance documents and implementation tools are needed in order to cover nanomaterials more specifically.

A method for the selective isolation and enrichment of carrier protein-bound low-molecular weight proteins and peptides in the blood.

The low molecular weight (LMW) region of the circulatory proteome, thought to contain a rich source of biomarkers, resides in vivo, in a complexed state with larger, highly abundant resident proteins. Consequently, serum fractionation approaches that deplete the high-abundance proteins under native conditions will remove much of the LMW proteome. We describe a new strategy to systematically collect, isolate and enrich the LMW molecules that would be otherwise eliminated during the depletion of high-abundance circulatory proteins based on continuous elution electrophoresis. We employ strong denaturing conditions to disrupt association with the high-abundance carrier proteins followed by fractionation and removal of SDS. Under denaturation, the LMW molecules were effectively stripped from the highly abundant carrier proteins. We then removed the SDS by ion exchange matrix sequestration and concentrated the fractions. The outcome is a series of SDS-free fractions of LMW molecules. The isolated fractions were then analyzed by enzymatic digestion followed by LC-MS/MS analysis. The yield of multiple peptide hits as well as the total number of identifications significantly increased (50%) compared to unfractionated serum. The method yielded a 30% higher number of low-abundance serum proteins compared to direct sequencing of unfractionated serum.

Proteomics approaches to study the redox state of cysteine-containing proteins.

All the proteins synthesized in a cell undergo several post-translational modifications that are essential in their functional regulation. Among these, the change of the redox state of Cysteine residues is assuming a great interest: this modification in fact, represents a very dynamic and regulated balance. There are several reversible oxidative events that can occur and that are difficult to detect. In this work we describe a methodology useful to recognize and to select Cysteines containing proteins on the basis of their redox state. The strategy is based on the selective labeling of the interested proteins and allows their visualization by Western Blot, enrichment by affinity chromatography and finally the identification of the protein and of the modified Cysteine residues by mass spectrometry. This methodology can be used in proteomic studies to recognize redox-sensitive Cysteine containing proteins and nitric oxide targets.

Rapid confirmatory assay for determining 12 sulfonamide antimicrobials in milk and eggs by matrix solid-phase dispersion and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry.

A rapid confirmatory method for determining 12 sulfonamide (SAs) antibacterials in whole milk and eggs is presented. This method is based on the matrix solid-phase dispersion technique with hot water as extractant followed by liquid chromatography (LC)-mass spectrometry (MS). The LC-MS instrument was equipped with an electrospray ion source and a single quadrupole. After 4 mL of a milk sample containing the analytes had been deposited on sand (crystobalite), this material was packed into an extraction cell. SAs were extracted by flowing 4 mL of water through the cell heated at 75 degrees C. With some modifications, this procedure was applied also to eggs. After pH adjustment and filtration, 0.5 mL of the final extracts was then injected into the LC column. MS data acquisition was performed in the positive-ion mode and by monitoring at least three ions for each target compound. The in-source collision-induced dissociation process produced confirmatory ions. At the 50 ng/g level, recovery of the analytes in milk and eggs was 77-92% with relative standard deviations ranging between 1 and 11%. Estimated limits of quantification (S/N = 10) were 1-3 ng/g of SAs in milk and 2-6 ng/g in eggs. With both matrices, attempts to reduce the analysis time by using a short chromatographic run time caused severe ion signal suppression for the early-eluted SAs. This effect was traced to competition effects by polar endogenous coextractives, maybe proteinaceous species, which are eluted in the first part of the chromatographic run. This unwelcome effect was almost completely removed by simply adopting more selective chromatographic conditions.