Ricerc@Sapienza

The story of mass spectrometry applied to the nanoparticles world is very young but actually it is expected to evolve as one of the most powerful tool for the characterization of the smaller-size nanoparticles in terms of composition, size, shape, surface chemistry, because of its versatility, sensitivity, reliability and the possibility to be coupled with high performance chromatographic separation techniques. A short overview on different fields where liquid chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry, nanomaterials and nanotechnology come together is herein given.

Nowadays, there is an increasing attention for nutraceuticals and, in general, bioactive compounds naturally present in food. Indeed, the possibility of preserving human health and preventing disease (e.g., cardiovascular diseases, cancer etc.) by the intake of healthy food is attractive for both consumers and food industries. In turn, research in this field was also prompted significantly, with the aim of characterizing these bioactive compounds and ascribe to them a specific activity. The bioactive compounds can belong to several chemical classes.

The aim of metabolic untargeted profiling is to detect and identify unknown compounds in a biological matrix to achieve the most comprehensive metabolic coverage. In phytochemical mixtures, however, the complexity of the sample could present significant difficulties in compound identification. In this case, the optimization of both the chromatographic and the mass-spectrometric conditions is supposed to be crucial for the detection and identification of the largest number of compounds.

The world population is increasing and there is a growing demand for food, leading to intensification of farming methods and a requirement for more coadjuvants. Potential high profits sometimes lead to fraudulent use of drugs and pesticides. Veterinary drugs in particular can pose a real risk to human health if their residues are allowed to enter the food chain. Parent drugs and their metabolites can occur in foodstuffs individually or as multicomponent mixtures with enhanced adverse effects.