Chemische Charakterisierung und Spurenanalytik
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Diatoms play a key role in assessing the eco-toxicology of metals and are already part of several national and international guidelines and regulations. Data on metal uptake and its correlation with a natural metal composition of the diatoms are mostly lacking on a cellular basis - mainly due to the lack of a suitable method on both the preparation and detection side. Therefore, within this work a fully automated approach based on the on-line coupling of a high performance liquid chromatograph (HPLC) and an inductively coupled plasma-time of flight-mass spectrometer (ICP-ToF-MS) was applied to analyze single cells of the alga Cyclotella meneghiniana multi-elementally in order to provide a deeper insight into the metal composition and its response to environmental stress. Multi-elemental analysis in single diatoms also enables assessment of combined toxicity of a set of metals. A set of four fingerprint elements, characteristically for diatoms (Mg, P, Si, Fe), were identified and hence the investigation of environmental stress onto the cells was enabled by performing incubation experiments with environmentally relevant toxic elements. It could be shown at moderate environmental stress caused by increasing the metal concentration in the medium (zinc) that the fingerprint element concentrations remained stable and thus the suitability of the selected elements for algae tracing was demonstrated. With regard to further ecotoxicological assessments, a multivariate approach was successfully applied allowing for cell classification upon different incubation concentration levels. This multivariate approach also facilitated an effective identification of three different diatom species (Cyclotella meneghiniana, Thalassiosira weissflogii and Thalassiosira pseudonana).
Diatoms are located at the bottom of the food chain. Toxicological relevant metals can possibly accumulate within the food web and cause harmful effects. Diatoms are a test system in ecotoxicology. Toxicological effects weaken the growth of algae which is by default investigated by means of fluorescence detection. On basis of the expose concentration as well as obtained fluorescence data potential threshold exceedance in e.g. surface waters is assessed.
However, this approach does not allow for the determination of “real” accumulated metal concentration in diatoms. Common approaches are based on bulk analysis via e.g. ICP-MS, ICP-OES or AAS. But, biological variability is completely disregarded.
To tackle this problem, alternative approaches are highly needed. Within the last years, sp-ICP-MS for nanoparticle as well as single cell analysis turned out as a powerful technique to analyze metal contents as well as size distributions on broad size range. But, common ICP-MS systems do not allow for multi-element detection within single particle/cell events. Thus, simultaneous MS detection devices are needed - just recently, ICP-ToF-MS experienced a revival.
Within our previous work, we developed an automated sample introduction system based on a HPLC system on-line with single particle-ICP-MS, which allowed for ionic background separation and single algae analysis. However, for unambiguous tracing several fingerprint elements and multielement analysis in single algae (diatoms) is needed. Thus, we coupled our previous setup on-line to ICP-ToF-MS. Test diatom species were exposed to test substances (Zn) as well as nanoparticles (FeNPs).
The developed setup allowed for a fast, automated and multielement analysis in single diatoms. Furthermore, we combined our approach with multivariate data assessment - multielement detection of characteristic fingerprint elements allowed for an unambiguous diatom tracing. Clustering of diatoms according to metal exposure concentration levels was enabled. Our approach is a new potential tool in ecotoxicological testing.
The most challenging part in performing a single cell ICP-MS (sc-ICP-MS) approach is the sample preparation, in particular the reduction of the ionic background. This step is, in many cases, time-consuming and required for each sample separately. Furthermore, sc-ICP-MS measurements are mostly carried out "manually", given the fact that present systems are not allowing for an automated change of samples. Thus, within this work, we developed an approach based on a HPLC system coupled on-line with sc-ICP-MS via a set of switching valves as well as an in-line filter for automated cell washing. This set-up enables the ionic background removal as well as analysis of single cells completely automated without any manual sample pretreatment. Our approach was applied for the analysis of the single celled diatom species Cyclotella meneghiniana, a marine diatom species, on the basis of Mg24 and facilitates testing in 11 min per sample, requiring only around 10,000 cells in a volume of 10 µL and approx. 10 mL of a 5% MeOH/95% deionized water (v/v) mixture. Even at extremely saline culturing media concentrations (up to 1000 mg L-1 magnesium) our on-line approach worked sufficiently allowing for distinction of ionic and particulate fractions. Furthermore, a set of diatom samples was analyzed completely automated without the need for changing samples manually. So, utilizing this approach enables analyzing a high quantity of samples in a short time and therefore in future the investigation of ecotoxicological effects is simplified for example in terms of metal accumulation by taking biovariability into account.