Seasonal occurrence of multiple classes of antibiotics in East China rivers and their association with suspended particulate matter.

Understanding the occurrence and fate of antibiotics from different categories is vital to predict their environmental exposure and risks. This study presents the spatiotemporal occurrence of 45 multi-class antibiotics and their associations with suspended particulate matter (SPM) in Xiaoqing River (XRB) and Yellow River (YRB) via 10-month monitoring in East China. Thirty-five and 31 antibiotics were detected in XRB and YRB, respectively. Among them, fluoroquinolones (FQs) had the highest total mean concentration (up to 24.8 µg/L in XRB and 15.4 µg/L in YRB), followed by sulfonamides (SAs) (14.0 µg/L and 15.4 µg/L) and macrolides (MLs) (1.1 µg/L and 1.6 µg/L). Significant spatial-temporal variations were found in both rivers where higher concentrations of antibiotics were observed in urban and densely populated areas during winter and spring. Hydrological factors such as river flow and water volume, instream attenuation and antibiotic usage may cause the observed variabilities in the seasonal patterns of antibiotic pollution. Using linear regression analysis, for the first time, this study confirmed that the total concentrations of MLs (p < 0.05), FQs (p < 0.001) and SAs (p < 0.001) were strongly correlated with the turbidity/total suspended solids in the studied rivers (except MLs in YRB). It is thus suggested that partitioning processes onto SPM might affect the distribution of detected antibiotics in rivers, which are largely dependent on SPM composition and characteristics. The risk quotient (RQ) determined for up to 87 % of individual compound was below 0.1 in both rivers; however, the high joint toxicity reflected by the mixed RQs of detected antibiotics may rise risk alarm for aquatic species. Further aspects regarding active mechanisms of SPM-antibiotic interactions and ecological risks of coexistence of multiple antibiotics need to be investigated.

Synthesis and in vitro sorption properties of PAA-grafted cellulose beads for selective binding of LDL.

Poly(acrylic acid) (PAA)-grafted cellulose copolymer beads were synthesized and tested in vitro as an adsorbent for selective removal of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) from human plasma. The copolymers were prepared by graft copolymerization of acrylic acid (AA) onto porous cellulose beads using cerium ammonium nitrate (CAN) as an initiator. The effect of initiator concentration, monomer amount and reaction time on the grafting was examined, and it revealed that the extent of grafting could be controlled by setting the appropriate reaction conditions. In vitro batch-wise adsorption tests were conducted to evaluate the lipoprotein sorption properties of the resulted copolymer beads, and the effect of grafting conditions on the adsorption performance was investigated. It was shown that the binding capacities of the best adsorbent derived from the appropriate reaction conditions could reach 4.96 mg/g total cholesterol (TC) and 4.46 mg/g LDL cholesterol (LDL-C) from human plasma, respectively, without significantly affecting the contents of beneficial constitutes such as high-density lipoprotein (HDL) and total proteins (TP). The influences of plasma amount and adsorption period on the adsorption properties were also determined and analyzed. It appears that this kind of copolymer is worthy of being developed as an alternative LDL adsorbent.

Chitosan adsorbents carrying amino acids for selective removal of low density lipoprotein.

Chitosan beads carrying various amino acids (a total of 12 kinds) were synthesized through quite simple procedures for selective removal of low density lipoprotein (LDL). Macroporous chitosan beads were prepared by the phase-inversion method, to which the amino acids were then coupled respectively, via either ethyleneglycol diglycidylether (EGDE) or epichlorohydrin (ECH). Among the amino acids used, in vitro tests proved L-Trp to be the best ligand for binding LDL. The adsorbent, which was prepared by coupling L-Trp to the chitosan beads via EGDE, demonstrated satisfactory adsorption performance for selective removal of LDL in human plasma.

Utilization of synergetic effect of weak interactions in the design of polymeric sorbents with high sorption selectivity.

Cystine and tyrosine were used as model sorbates to illustrate the design of sorbents with high sorption selectivity using two types of weak interactions that act synergistically. When two types of weak interactions are the driving forces in a sorption and they act synergistically, the second interaction would be effectively intramolecular. The entropy lost for the second interaction should be lower than that for the same interaction that occurs alone, and thus a significant enhancement of sorption should result. We designed an N-acetyl aminomethyl polystyrene resin (N-acetyl HC-D309), which was expected to sorb tyrosine through hydrophobic interaction and hydrogen bonding but not cystine. The chromatographic results for tyrosine and cystine indicate that the separation efficiencies on the N-acetyl HC-D309 column are higher than those on a styrene-divinylbenzene copolymer column, on which sorption should be driven by hydrophobic interaction only, and on an acrylamide-N,N'-methylene bisacrylamide copolymer column, on which sorption should be driven by hydrogen bonding only. Tyrosine as well as cystine had no retention at all on the acrylamide-N,N'-methylene bisacrylamide copolymer column. indicating the hydrogen bonding had little contribution to the sorption when it acted alone. The above results further indicate that hydrophobic interaction and hydrogen bonding contributed to the sorption of tyrosine on N-acetyl HC-D309 and they also acted synergistically. One of the conclusions of this paper is that some weak interactions which contribute little to the sorption when they act alone may contribute to the sorption when they act synergistically with other interactions.