Current Analytical Chemistry - Volume 1, Issue 3, 2005

Sulfated polysaccharides and their oligosaccharide components play an important biological role in physiological and pathophysiological processes. Glycosaminoglycans, such as heparin, are currently used as pharmaceutical agents to control coagulation. Moreover, there are intensive efforts in developing rapid approaches for the analysis of such bioactive carbohydrates to assess their pharmacological activity and in glycomic a Read More

Recent experiences with liquid chromatography-quadrupole ion trap-mass spectrometry (LC-QITMS), as an analytical tool for determining trace amounts of organic contaminants in food and environmental samples, are addressed in this review. A brief introduction to the fundamental theory for quadrupole ion trap devices illustrates possibilities and limitations of this technique. Special attention is paid to the impact of sample Read More

The persistence of pesticides and drugs in products destined for human consumption is of great concern, in particular because of their potential carcinogenic character. However, often the transformation products formed through degradation processes possess higher toxicity than the parent compounds. It is then of primary importance not only to achieve their abatement (through purification procedures), but also to detect a Read More

Diffusion NMR, and in particular the DOSY processing method (Diffusion Ordered SpectroscopY), is an attractive technique to characterize mixtures without first having to separate the components. As a result, DOSY can yield a vast amount of analytical information. General applications of DOSY are reviewed here although we emphasize specialist applications that provide unique data. Such applications include the analysis of kine Read More

NMR based methods to screen for high-affinity ligands have become an indispensable tool for designing rationalized drugs, as these offer a combination of good experimental design of the screening process and data interpretation methods, which together provide unprecedented information on the complex nature of protein-ligand interactions. These methods rely on measuring direct changes in the spectral para Read More

This paper presents a comprehensive review of how recent advances in flow injection-capillary electrophoresis (FI-CE) technology have led to enhanced separation capabilities of a wide range of analytes in such areas as biological, environmental, food, medical and pharmaceutical analysis. Significant developments in design, detection methodology and applications made in the last five years are reported. In addition, future Read More

In this paper, the state-of-the-art of automated solvent extraction procedures exploiting flowing stream techniques is thoroughly presented and discussed. While flow-injection liquid-liquid extraction (FI-LLE) was originally associated with the use of a solvent extractor involving a segmentor and a phase separator, current analytical trends are focused on the design and characterisation of novel strategies for the removal of t Read More

In recent years, microfluidic devices have been increasingly used to separate particles such as colloids, macromolecules, cells, beads and droplets. Miniaturisation often introduces new functionalities and paradigms that are not possible at conventional macroscopic scales. In this paper, split-flow-thin fractionation techniques for particle separation are reviewed and the underlying physics of particle migration is discussed. The Read More

Several protein sequence and structure databases have emerged from a worldwide effort to curate the information on protein sequences and their structures. Sequences are written in different formats and certain standards have evolved. On the other hand, Protein Data Bank is the largest source of information on protein structures, and sets standards on the way structural information should be written. For handling large n Read More

This review covers the application of atomic and mass spectrometric techniques for the determination of metals and metalloids in atmospheric aerosols. Atomic spectrometric methods based on flame atomic absorption spectrometry (FAAS), electrothermal atomic absorption spectrometry (ETAAS), atomic fluorescence spectrometry (AFS), total reflection X-ray fluorescence (TXRF) spectrometry and plasma based techniques Read More