Knox Kristin E, Abrahamsson Dimitri, Trowbridge Jessica, Park June-Soo, Wang Miaomiao, Carrera Erin, Hartmayer Lisa, Morello-Frosch Rachel, Rudel R A
Silent Spring Institute, Newton, Massachusetts 02460, United States.
Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment, Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences, University of California, San Francisco, California 94143, United States.
Environ Sci Technol. 2025 May 20;59(19):9437-9448. doi: 10.1021/acs.est.4c14790. Epub 2025 May 5.
We analyzed blood serum samples from two unique female occupational cohorts - 60 nurses and 40 office workers in San Francisco, CA - using liquid chromatography and high-resolution mass spectrometry (quadrupole time-of-flight). Applying a nontargeted analysis (NTA) approach, we sought to isolate occupationally related chemical exposures that were unique to nurses by flagging features that were different from office workers in abundance (mean; 95th percentile) or detection frequency. Of 9828 negative electrospray ionization (ESI-) and 6898 positive electrospray ionization (ESI+) detected chemical features, 1094 and 938, respectively, were higher in nurses, possibly due to workplace exposures. We deciphered the molecular structures of these chemical features by applying data-dependent acquisition (DDA) and targeted MS/MS approaches to pooled samples from each occupational group, and we annotated them using spectral MS/MS databases in MS-DIAL. Nurses had higher concentrations of 14 chemicals that we identified at Schymanski Level 1 (N = 6) or 2 (N = 8), as well as 20 tentatively identified chemicals without spectra. Several chemicals may be occupationally relevant for nurses, including a PFAS (6:2 fluorotelomer sulfonic acid), tridecanedioic acid, salicylic acid, and the medications acetaminophen and theophylline. To our knowledge, this study is the first to apply NTA to elucidate novel chemical exposures in nurses.
我们使用液相色谱和高分辨率质谱（四极杆飞行时间）分析了来自加利福尼亚州旧金山两个独特女性职业队列的血清样本——60名护士和40名办公室职员。采用非靶向分析（NTA）方法，我们试图通过标记在丰度（均值；第95百分位数）或检测频率上与办公室职员不同的特征，来分离护士特有的职业相关化学暴露。在检测到的9828个负电喷雾电离（ESI-）和6898个正电喷雾电离（ESI+）化学特征中，护士体内分别有1094个和938个特征更高，这可能是由于工作场所暴露所致。我们通过对每个职业组的混合样本应用数据依赖采集（DDA）和靶向MS/MS方法，解析了这些化学特征的分子结构，并使用MS-DIAL中的光谱MS/MS数据库对其进行注释。护士体内14种化学物质的浓度较高，我们在Schymanski 1级（N = 6）或2级（N = 8）鉴定出了这些物质，还有20种暂定鉴定出的无光谱化学物质。几种化学物质可能与护士的职业相关，包括一种全氟烷基磺酸（6:2氟调聚物磺酸）、十三烷二酸、水杨酸以及药物对乙酰氨基酚和茶碱。据我们所知，本研究是首次应用NTA来阐明护士中新的化学暴露情况。
