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Analysis and subcellular distribution of organophosphate esters (OPEs) in rice tissues

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Abstract

Recent studies have identified the ability of plants to uptake and translocate organophosphate esters (OPEs) within cells. In response to the increasing interest in OPEs and their occurrence in paddy fields and rice, the current study aimed to present an effective and sensitive GC–MS based methodology for quantitative determination of 11 OPEs with octanol–water coefficients ranging from 1.6 to 10. Rice was sonicated with hexane and dichloromethane, and fractionated on two columns: one consisting of neutral alumina, and neutral silica, and the other consisting of graphitized carbon black. Method precision was validated using spiked rice (n = 30) and procedural blanks (n = 9). The mean recovery of matrix spikes for all target OPEs were within 78–110% with relative standard deviation lower than 25%, with a few exceptions. This method was applied to process the wild rice (O. sativa) in which tri-n-propyl phosphate was the dominant targeted OPE. The recoveries of surrogate standards were 81 ± 17% for d12- tris(2-chloroethyl) phosphate and 95 ± 8.8% for 13C12- triphenyl phosphate. The developed method was further used to examine the recoveries of target OPEs in the subcellular structure of rice tissues, including cell wall, cell organelles, cell water-soluble fractions, and cell residue. Recoveries of most target OPEs were in the range of 50–150%; however, ion enhancement was observed for four OPEs in root and shoot tissues. Hydrophobic OPEs accumulated in the cell wall, cell residue, and cell organelles while chlorinated OPEs mainly distributed in the cell water-soluble fraction. These results provide new insight for the ecological risk assessment of OPEs in an important food staple.

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Funding

This work was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (42077334), the GDAS’ Project of Science and Technology Development (2020GDASYL-20200101002 and 2022GDASZH-2022010105), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (U20A20109), and the Department of Finance of Guangdong Province (2022-GD-6).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. National-Regional Joint Engineering Research Center for Soil Pollution Control and Remediation in South China, Guangdong Key Laboratory of Integrated Agro-Environmental Pollution Control and Management, Institute of Eco-Environmental and Soil Sciences, Guangdong Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou, 510650, China

    Zifei Qin & Shaorui Wang

  2. Guangdong Key Laboratory of Environmental Pollution and Health, School of Environment, Jinan University, Guangzhou, 511443, China

    Liang-ying Liu

  3. School of Geography, Earth, and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, B15 2TT, UK

    William A. Stubbings

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  1. Zifei Qin
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  2. Liang-ying Liu
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  3. William A. Stubbings
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  4. Shaorui Wang
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Contributions

Zifei Qin analyzed and interpreted the data and is major contributors in writing the manuscript. Liang-ying Liu, William A. Stubbings, and Shaorui Wang reviewed and edited the manuscript. All authors approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Shaorui Wang.

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Qin, Z., Liu, Ly., Stubbings, W.A. et al. Analysis and subcellular distribution of organophosphate esters (OPEs) in rice tissues. Environ Sci Pollut Res 30, 74021–74030 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-27564-3

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