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Polystyrene nanofibers capped with copper nanoparticles for selective extraction of glutathione prior to its determination by HPLC

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Abstract

Polystyrene nanofibers were coated with copper nanoparticles (CuNPs) by a combination of electrospinning and in-situ reduction of Cu(II) using sodium borohydride as the reductant. The CuNPs on the nanofibers were characterized by energy dispersive spectrometry, scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy. A cartridge was packed with the nanofibers which then were activated with methanol and water. Glutathione (GSH) is found to quantitatively adsorbed by the packed cartridge at pH 3.0, and then can be desorbed with aqueous 2-mercaptoethanol and detected, after derivatization with ortho-phthalaldehyde, via high performance liquid chromatography with fluorometric detection. Under optimized conditions, the method has a 1.1 ng·mL−1 detection limit and a response that is linear in the 10–1000 ng·mL−1 GSH concentration range. The recoveries of GSH from artificial urine spiked at three levels (80, 400 and 800 ng·mL−1) are in the range of 94.6–98.6% with relative standard deviations (RSD) of <4.5% (n = 5). The method was applied to assessing the differences in urinary GSH between high-risk infants and healthy infants. The results show that the levels of GSH of normal infants are significantly higher than those of high-risk infants (P < 0.05).

Schematic of the preparation of CuNP-assembled nanofibers and the mechanism of extracting glutathione (GSH). GSH can be extracted by this material based on a strong interaction between the sorbent and GSH. This is attributed to the formation of Cu-S bonds between Cu and -SH.

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Acknowledgments

This study was supported by the National Science Foundation of China (No. 81172720, No. 81673230); the Social Development Research Program of Jiangsu Province Science and Technology department (No. BE2016741); and the Postgraduate Research & Practice Innovation Program of Jiangsu Province (No. KYCX17_0189).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Environmental Medicine and Engineering (Ministry of Education), School of Public Health, Southeast University, Nanjing, 210096, People’s Republic of China

    Lanlan Wei

  2. Division of Child Care, Suzhou Municipal Hospital, Suzhou, Jiangsu215002, People’s Republic of China

    Yuan Song & Ping Liu

  3. Key Laboratory of Child Development and Learning Science (Ministry of Education), School of Biological Science & Medical Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing, 210096, People’s Republic of China

    Xuejun Kang

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  1. Lanlan Wei
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  2. Yuan Song
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Correspondence to Xuejun Kang.

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Wei, L., Song, Y., Liu, P. et al. Polystyrene nanofibers capped with copper nanoparticles for selective extraction of glutathione prior to its determination by HPLC. Microchim Acta 185, 321 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00604-018-2845-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00604-018-2845-z

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