ALBERT

Description: Recent studies have detected different antimicrobial residues in broiler chicken feathers, where they persisted for longer periods of time and at greater concentrations than in edible tissues. However, until today, lincomycin behaviour in this nonedible tissue has not been assessed yet. Considering this, an analytical methodology to detect and quantify this antibiotic concentration in feathers, muscle, and liver tissues from broiler chickens was implemented and in-house validated. The methodology will allow the determination of the bioaccumulation of this highly persistent antibiotic in feathers of treated birds. For this purpose, 98% lincomycin and 95% lincomycin D3 standards were used. Methanol was selected as the extraction solvent, and Chromabond® Florisil® cartridges were used for the clean-up stage. The separation of analytes was performed through the analytical column SunFire C18 with a running time of 4 minutes, and the instrumental analysis was performed through an LC-MS/MS, with a liquid chromatograph Agilent® 1290 Infinity, coupled to an AB SCIEX® API 5500 mass spectrometer. An internal protocol for an in-house validation was designed based on recommendations from Commission Decision 2002/657/EC and the Guidance document on the estimation of limit of detection and limit of quantification for measurements in the field of contaminants in feed and food. The average retention time for lincomycin was 2.255 min (for quantifier ion, 126.0). The calibration curves showed a coefficient of determination (r2) greater than 0.99 for all matrices, while recovery levels ranged between 98% and 101%. The limit of detection (LOD) calculated was of 19, 22, and 10 μg·kg−1, and the limit of quantification (LOQ) was of 62, 73, and 34 μg·kg−1 in feathers, muscle, and liver, respectively. This method detects lincomycin in the studied matrices, confidently and accurately, as it is required for designing analytical studies of drug residues in edible and nonedible tissues, such as feathers.

Description: Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disorder that accounts for nearly 70% of the more than 46 million dementia cases estimated worldwide. Although there is no cure for AD, early diagnosis and an accurate characterization of the disease progression can improve the quality of life of AD patients and their caregivers. Currently, AD diagnosis is carried out using standardized mental status examinations, which are commonly assisted by expensive neuroimaging scans and invasive laboratory tests, thus rendering the diagnosis time consuming and costly. Notwithstanding, over the last decade, electroencephalography (EEG) has emerged as a noninvasive alternative technique for the study of AD, competing with more expensive neuroimaging tools, such as MRI and PET. This paper reports on the results of a systematic review on the utilization of resting-state EEG signals for AD diagnosis and progression assessment. Recent journal articles obtained from four major bibliographic databases were analyzed. A total of 112 journal articles published from January 2010 to February 2018 were meticulously reviewed, and relevant aspects of these papers were compared across articles to provide a general overview of the research on this noninvasive AD diagnosis technique. Finally, recommendations for future studies with resting-state EEG were presented to improve and facilitate the knowledge transfer among research groups.