21 Aug Automatic MS data analysis to reveal the metabolic pathways of pesticides in fruits and soils

Rosalía López-Ruiz[1]; Antonia Garrido Frenich[1]; Roberto Romero-González[1]; Elisabeth Ortega-Carrasco[2]; Blanca Serra[2]; Ismael Zamora[2]

[1]Research Group “Analytical Chemistry of Contaminants”, Department of Chemistry and Physics, Research Centre for Agricultural and Food Biotechnology (BITAL), University of Almería, Spain. [2]Lead Molecular Design, S.L., Sant Cugat del Valles, Spain.

 

In the intensive farming of fruit and vegetable, a variety of pesticides are applied to prevent or eliminate harmful pests from plants. These pesticides can remain in edible parts as residues entering into the food chain. In most of the cases, pesticides can be transformed into metabolites, which are intermediate products of metabolism formed either in plants or animals. The detection of those metabolites does not end in the edible parts of the fruits and vegetables. It is also needed a deep study of soils and water to ensure that the concentration of harmful compounds will not reach the limit stablished by law. Advances in analytical techniques with increased sensitivity have led to the detection of a growing number of metabolites at low concentrations, being HPLC-HRMS the most used analytical method to perform this task. To boost the structure elucidation of the different metabolites, we used MassChemSite 2.0.