Objective There is considerable and growing interest in the impact of long-term exposure in humans and wildlife to trace concentrations of potent biochemicals derived from human activities. This stems from emerging information that even at trace levels in water and foodstuffs of key contaminants may induce adverse physiological effects. Of prime concern are traces of estrogens, which can lead to feminisation of males, mutagens, which can induce cancer, and antibiotics, which may lead to the induction of resistance in bacteria. However currently very little is known about exposure routes of the medical substances in the environment and further research is necessary to assess the environmental risks involved in long term exposure of man and other species to a cocktail of such chemicals.Typical levels reported for these analytes in water are pg-mg/ml and consequently current methods for their detection and quantitation require laborious extraction and pre-concentration steps prior to analysis and the analytical methods are themselves slow requiring expensive and sophisticated equipment. Much attention is therefore being devoted to exploring alternative methods for the simple extraction and analysis of such key contaminants. This proposal explores one approach that uses immobilised antibodies for the extraction process in a conventional column format and in a potentially simpler dip strip format. The antibodies will also be used to develop assays based on electrochemical and optical immunobiosensors and a simple dip strip ELISA format. Mutagenicity will be assessed using an electrochemical biosensor. Both the extraction methods and assay methods should provide simple, cost effective and possibly portable systems to enable and facilitate further study in this emerging area.The key objectives of the programme are:General:Three types of analytes are to be investigated as representative examples of potent contaminants of greatest potential impact on health for humans and wildlife. These are steroid estrogens, mutagens and two classes of antibiotics, namely the b-lactams and sulfamethoxazole.Specific:To syntheise immunogens and raise antiserum to sulfamethoxazole;To use existing antiserum to steroidal estrogens, b-lactams and the antiserum from 1 to develop dip strip immunoassays and polarization fluoroimmunoassays;To use the antisera from 2 to develop surface plasmon resonance and amperometric immunosensors;To use the antisera from 2 to prepare solid phase extraction systems based on a dip strip and column formats;To investigate the extraction efficiency of the systems from 4 using conventional extraction and analytical methods using spiked water, milk and bread as matrices;To extract water, milk and bread from the neighbourhood of each team member using established and the new extraction methods;To analyse the extracts from 6 using the methods developed in 2 and 3 and also subject them to a analysis for mutagenicity using an established electrochemical biosensor;To publish the validated analytical methods in a leading international journals such as Analytical Chemistry or The AnalystA successful outcome will therefore identify one or more fully validated simple methods le for analyte extraction from selected food and beverages and specify fully validated simple and robust methods for their subsequent analysis.The five partners in the consortium are leading experts in their own countries in the fields of analytical science and physics each having considerable expertise in one or more facets of the programme. Programme(s) IC-INTAS - International Association for the promotion of cooperation with scientists from the independent states of the former Soviet Union (INTAS), 1993- Topic(s) 4 - Life Sciences FOOD - Food quality and safety Call for proposal Data not available Funding Scheme Data not available Coordinator University of Sunderland EU contribution No data Address Warncliffe Street SR1 3SD Sunderland United Kingdom See on map Total cost No data Participants (4) Sort alphabetically Sort by EU Contribution Expand all Collapse all Kazan State University Russia EU contribution No data Address Kremlevskaja str. 18 420008 Kazan See on map Total cost No data M.V. Lomonosov Moscow State University Russia EU contribution No data Address Leninsky Gory 119899 Moscow See on map Total cost No data National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine Ukraine EU contribution No data Address Prospekt Nauki, 45 03208 Kiev See on map Total cost No data University of Crete Greece EU contribution No data Address Voutes, Iraklion 71409 Heraklion, Crete See on map Total cost No data
