Superfund Research Program
Analytical Chemistry Core
Project Leader: Jun Yang
Co-Investigators: Bruce D. Hammock, Bruce A. Buchholz (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory)
Grant Number: P42ES004699
Funding Period: 1995-2023
Project-Specific Links
Final Progress Reports
The Analytical Chemistry Core offers the analytical support critical to solving collaborative research problems. Advanced analytical methods and techniques are developed to detect biomarkers of exposure to hazardous substances in the environment and to assess the impact these substances have on human health. This Core is composed of two major laboratories: the SRP Analytical Laboratory at UC Davis, providing a range of instrument services, with emphasis on mass spectrometry and chromatography, and the Accelerator Mass Spectrometry Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), which provides ultra-trace analysis of rare heavy isotope tracers – 3H and 14C.
The major goal of SRP Analytical Laboratory at UC Davis is to provide general analytical support for the projects funded by NIEHS projects Superfund Research Program. As reflected by the publication list enclosed, the core has been very active in support of projects including: 1) support by advice and walk up use of analytical instruments including various chromatographic and mass spectrometric instruments; 2) support for small molecule synthesis including generation and interpretation of mass spectra, advice on NMR interpretation and evaluation of purity by chromatographic, TOF MS and other techniques; 3) support of the Immunochemical Biomarkers; 4) providing metabolomics support and support for profiling key metabolite classes; 5) providing the training courses (both lecture and lab). In total, there are 30 papers published with core A in the past year.
There are two highlights the Analytical Chemistry Core would like to bring up. The first highlight is the major effort in support of the Immunoassays for Human and Environmental Monitoring Project. The structures of all analytical standards and haptens reported in this project were supported by the Analytical Chemistry Core and these immunoassay methods were compared with the LC/MS/MS developed in the Analytical Chemistry Core. Immunoassay methods using nanobodies were developed for tetrabromobisphenol A (Wang et al. 2014) and ochratoxin A (Liu et al. accepted). Another highlight is the metabolomics support. The Analytical Chemistry Core provides the metabolomics support to profile the lipid mediators. The idea is that the alteration of levels of these lipid mediators is indicative of exposure to environmental toxins in vivo. The profiles of these mediators could reflect the interaction between the nutritional state of an individual (Schuchardt et al. 2014, Charles et al. 2014, Ulu et al. 2014, Schebb et al. 2014), their exposure to environmental chemicals and their health (Zhang et al. 2014, Wagner et al. 2014, Kim et al. 2014, Ono et al. 2014, Bettaieb et al. 2014, Yang et al. 2015).
In addition, the Analytical Chemistry Core is also collaborating with the projects among nationwide Superfund Programs. Collaborating with Superfund program in San Diego (Yueh et al 2014), this Core found that the commonly used antimicrobial additive triclosan is a liver tumor promoter.