An analytical procedure enabling routine analysis of four environmental estrogens at concentrations below 1 ng L(-1) in estuarine water samples has been developed and validated. The method includes extraction of water samples using solid-phase extraction discs and detection by gas chromatography (GC) with tandem mass spectrometry (MS-MS) in electron-impact (EI) mode. The targeted estrogens incl...

CONTEXT Bottled water has become a status symbol and is frequently used in place of tap water. While both waters are considered safe to drink, is either more beneficial in preventing tooth decay and is there a difference in purity? OBJECTIVE To determine the fluoride level and bacterial content of commercially bottled waters municipal tap water and to compare the results. DESIGN Comparative...

A large-volume (100 microl) injection-ETAAS with W-treated PG furnace combined with a phosphate modifier was applied to the determination of unpolluted levels of Cd in tap, snow and river-water samples. The limit of detection of 1.1 ng l(-1) was observed for a 4 w/v% NH4H2PO4 modifer. Matrix interference studies were tested for major ion species well found in fresh water. The direct determinati...

The world has a long experience of using harvested rainwater from rooftop catchments in urbanized regions. There are also many studies about the technical, health, and environmental details of such systems. The gradual prevalence of rainwater harvesting systems in the country exposes a necessity to determine and define some guidelines and instructions for health and environmental considerations...

Naturally-occurring inhibitory compounds are a major concern during qPCR and RT-qPCR analysis of environmental samples, particularly large volume water samples. Here, a standardized method for measuring and mitigating sample inhibition in environmental water concentrates is described. Specifically, the method 1) employs a commercially available standard RNA control; 2) defines inhibition by the...

We propose an innovative, repeatable, and reliable experimental workflow to concentrate and detect environmental bacteria in drinking water using molecular techniques. We first concentrated bacteria in water samples using tangential flow filtration and then we evaluated two methods of environmental DNA extraction. We performed tests on both artificially contaminated water samples and real drink...

The protistan parasite Perkinsus marinus is a severe pathogen of the oyster Crassostrea virginica along the east coast of the United States. Very few data have been collected, however, on the abundance of the parasite in environmental waters, limiting our understanding of P. marinus transmission dynamics. Real-time PCR assays with SybrGreen I as a label for detection were developed in this stud...

introduction: the protozoan parasite, cryptosporidium spp., widely spreads in both raw and drinking waters. it is the causative agents of waterborne diarrhea and gastroenteritis in the world. in the present study, a molecular assay was used for the detection and quantification of cryptosporidium oocysts in environmental water samples. materials and methods: thirty surface water samples were col...