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A sensitive and robust method for the simultaneous determination of thirty-three legacy and emerging per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances in human plasma and serum

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Abstract

Legacy and emerging per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) have attracted growing attention due to their potential adverse effects on humans. We developed a method to simultaneously determine thirty-three PFAS (legacy PFAS, precursors, and alternatives) in human plasma and serum using solid phase extraction coupled to ultra-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (SPE-UPLC-MS/MS). The method yielded good linearity (>0.995) and excellent limits of detection (LODs) (0.0005~0.012 ng mL−1 in plasma and 0.002~0.016 ng mL−1 in serum). The relative recoveries ranged from 80.1 to 116%, with intra- and inter-day precision less than 14.3%. The robustness of this method has been tested continuously for 10 months (coefficients of variation <14.9%). Our method was successfully applied to the PFAS analysis of 42 real human plasma and serum samples collected from women. The proposed method is attractive for the biomonitoring of multi-class PFAS in human health risk assessment and epidemiological studies.

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Funding

This study was supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41991314), the Science and Technology Development Funds of Shanghai of China (22YF1426700), and the Collaborative Innovation Program of Shanghai Municipal Health Commission (2020CXJQ01).

Author information

Author notes

  1. Yan Ao and Min Nian contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ministry of Education-Shanghai Key Laboratory of Children’s Environmental Health, Xinhua Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, No. 1665, Kongjiang Road, Shanghai, 200092, China

    Yan Ao, Weifeng Tang, Jun Zhang, Qianlong Zhang & Junjie Ao

  2. Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200082, China

    Min Nian

  3. School of Public Health, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200025, China

    Jun Zhang

Authors
  1. Yan Ao
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  2. Min Nian
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  3. Weifeng Tang
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  4. Jun Zhang
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  5. Qianlong Zhang
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  6. Junjie Ao
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Contributions

Yan Ao: Conceptualization, methodology and writing. Min Nin: Methodology and reviewing. Weifeng Tang: Investigation and validation. Jun Zhang: Reviewing. Qianlong Zhang: Investigation and reviewing. Junjie Ao: Project administration, conceptualization, reviewing and editing.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Qianlong Zhang or Junjie Ao.

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Human samples/ethical statements

Human samples were included in this study. This study was approved by the Ethical Committee of the Xinhua Hospital affiliated to the Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine (No: XHEC-C-2013–001).

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Ao, Y., Nian, M., Tang, W. et al. A sensitive and robust method for the simultaneous determination of thirty-three legacy and emerging per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances in human plasma and serum. Anal Bioanal Chem 415, 457–470 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-022-04426-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-022-04426-4

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