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Fate of micropollutants during vermicomposting
Grasserová, Alena ; Cajthaml, Tomáš (advisor) ; Macek, Tomáš (referee) ; Lhotský, Ondřej (referee)
Vermicomposting is recently becoming a rather popular environmentally friendly technique for stabilizing biowaste, including sewage sludge. There is an effort to utilize the sewage sludge as fertilizer on agricultural land. But apart from nutrients, the sludge also contains harmful pollutants, which subsequently after its deposition on fields can be taken up by plants and organisms contaminating the food chains. Micropollutants, the substances that can be found throughout the environment in trace concentrations, are one of the pollutants occurring in sludge. It is for example pharmaceuticals and personal care products, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or pesticides. Their negative effects are known - they can be for instance endocrine disruption, antibiotic resistance, or the development of cancer. Although the deposition of sewage sludge on fields as a fertilizer is one of the main introduction routes of micropollutants to the environment, the content of micropollutants before deposition is not monitored nor regulated. This dissertation focuses on the fate of micropollutants during vermicomposting, especially in sewage sludge substrates. The vermicomposting method was applied to stabilize coffee spent grounds and sewage sludge obtained from distinct wastewater treatment plants mixed with...
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Methods of water samples processing with subsequent in vitro detection of endocrine disrupters
Daniel, Romain Oliver ; Komendová, Renata (referee) ; Bittner,, Michal (advisor)
In recent years, interest in monitoring of estrogenic compounds in water environment due to their adverse effects on human and animal health has been increased. Partiucular attention is paid to analytical techniques used to quantify estrogens in water samples, such as instrumental and biological techniques (in vitro, in vivo). Water samples need to be concentrated due to very low estrogen levels (ng·L-1) and low limit of detection of used analytical methods. Solid phase extraction (SPE) or liquid-liquid extraction (LLE) are comonly used to concentrate water samples. This bachelor thesis represents reverse osmosis (RO) and nanofiltration (NF) as another possible methods for this purpose. This thesis is focused on the preconcentration of water samples spiked with four estrogens (estrone E1, 17-estradiol E2, estriol E3 and 17-ethynylestradiol EE2) and surface water samples taken from three watercourses in city of Brno using RO and SPE and its comparison of their effeciency. This was evaluated by in vitro estrogenicity assay on the stably transfected cell line hER-HeLa-9903. By using RO, estrogens were concentrated with different recovery – the highest recovery was reached for EE2 129.29%, lowest for E2 38.53%. No detectable amount of estrogen has been detected in surface water samples. RO appears to be a suitable method to the water samples preconcentration prior to in vitro analysis of endocrine disrupting compounds. Water samples treated by the SPE method were not measured untill the sunbmission of bachelor thesis, so the RO and SPE efficiency was not performed.
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Ecotoxicity tests on cellular level
Procházková, Petra ; Vávrová, Milada (referee) ; Zlámalová Gargošová, Helena (advisor)
Endocrine disrupting compounds among significant environmental pollutants. They are dangerous both for humans and other organisms by affect their hormonal system. They enter the environment during production, use and disposal some chemicals, but they may be of natural origin. The aim of this work is to give a brief overview of possible methods of determination of the presence of ecotoxic substances in the environment, using the in vitro toxicity assays. These tests use cell cultures instead of test organisms. The work describes principles of ecotoxicity tests at the cellular level, such as cell viability assays, cell proliferation assays, assays based on the metabolic activity of cells or DNA microarrays. A significant part of this work is focused on the possibilities of determination of endocrine disruptors by selected assays. They are ligand binding assays, reporter gene assays (recombinant yeast assay, mammalian-based reporter gene assays) and cell proliferation assay called E-screen. Significance and rationale use of tests to prove the endocrine activities in environmental matrice is given through examples of studies in which the tests were used.
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Mathematic Modelling of Reverse Osmosis System Design for Detection of Estrogens in Water
Siegel, Jan ; Skopalík, Josef (referee) ; Bittner, Michal (advisor)
Estrogen compounds are a subgroup of the environmental pollutants named Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals. It is a large group of chemicals which are capable of causing hormonal imbalance of an organism and affecting its reproductive, developmental or behavioral functions. In the environment, they are found in very low concentrations (below ng/l). This makes their detection and elimination highly problematic. The Research Centre for Toxic Compounds in the Environment (RECETOX) has been developing an experimental device which employes reverse osmosis (RO) to concentrate the trace amounts of micropollutants (e.g. estrogens). The aim is to lower the detection limit of subsequent analytical methods. RO seems to be a promising alternative to commonly used methods which are more time consuming and costly. The aim of this thesis is to create a mathematical model of RO, which would describe the process of estrogen concentration and therefore could contribute to the optimization of experimental device. The mathematical model was created in MATLAB-simulink and verified by comparison to thirteen experimental results. The solutions used to test the model were NaCl at 0.002–2 g/l and drinking water with 17-ethinylestradiol of 25 ng/l. In order to concentrate the retentate on a flat-sheet RO membrane the model achieves a mean relative error in the range of 0.9–4.9 % for NaCl and drinking water. For the concentration of estrogens the deflection is 3.6 %. Comparing the model and experimental concentration of NaCl on a spiral wound RO-membrane, the deviation is in the range of 5.9–8.7 %. So far, ratio of retentate volume from the beginning to the end of the process has been used to determine the process recovery. However, due to the results obtained in the thesis, this approach appears inaccurate. A more accurate recovery would likely be achieved by using the theoretical concentration value obtained by the proposed mathematical model. However, to increase reliability, the further measurements with estrogens are needed, and also to determine the causes of deflection of model and experimental retentate volume values at the end of the concentration
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Removal of selected pharmaceuticals from the treated wastewater by oxidation processes
Novotný, Hana ; Macsek, Tomáš (referee) ; Hlavínek, Petr (advisor)
The aim of the work is research and summarize the currently available information about micropollutants with a focus on drugs and pesticides. The first part deals with the description, occurrence of micropollutants and their effects on organisms. The second part deals with the possibility of removing selected drugs from wastewater and the application of such methods in practice, and evaluates the effectiveness and economic aspects of O3, O3 + H2O2, O3 + UV and O3 + H2O2 + UV.
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Synthetic bodies
Veselá, Lenka ; Kolářová,, Kateřina (referee) ; Klodová, Lenka (referee) ; Fajnor, Richard (advisor)
In my dissertation thesis grounded in the notion of synthetic bodies, I reflect on the fact that we are not enclosed entities, but lively structures formed in relation to the environments which surround and entangle us. With a focus on industrially manufactured chemicals, which have become ubiquitous on Earth in the Anthropocene, I examine the far-reaching effects of what it means to be a synthetic body in a world permeated and transformed by man-made technologies. Through the collective publication and exhibition project Synthetic Becoming and individually developed intervention which localizes the effects of anthropogenic chemical pollution on our sadness, irritability, anxieties, inability to concentrate, and feelings of despair and hopelessness, I explore how we can live well in the context of changes caused by industrial modernity. How can we come to terms with our open and permeable, and thus also vulnerable and wounded bodies? How can we understand who we are becoming with anthropogenic chemicals? How can we accept and affirm the part of ourselves which is co-constituted through industrial production, distribution, and consumption? How can we resist, survive, and keep going — with and despite industrial chemicals?
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Effect of pergafast 201 on selected markers of in vitro maturation of porcine oocytes.
Procházková, Bára ; Petr, Jaroslav (advisor) ; Benc, Michal (referee)
Pergafast 201 (N-(p-Toluenesulfonyl)-N'-(3-p-toluenesulfonyloxyphenyl)urea) is a patented color developer that is offered as an alternative to the widely used bisphenols A and S (BPA, BPS). These substances have been shown to have a negative effect on human health and reproduction even in very low doses, and they are endocrine disruptors affecting, among other things, the process of meiotic maturation. The effects of pergafast 201 on the mammalian organism during oogenesis have not yet been monitored. The aim of this work was to evaluate the effect of pergafast 201 on selected specific markers of meiotic maturation after exposure of porcine oocytes to pergafast 201 in low concentrations in vitro. This work is the first to describe the negative effects of pergafast 201 on the maturation of porcine oocytes in vitro, confirming the negative effect of pergafast on the course of meiotic maturation and on the ability of the oocyte to reach the final stage of maturation, as well as its effect on the increased incidence of abnormal dividing spindles. The data show the effect of PF201 on the methylation of epigenetic markers H3K4me2 and H3K9me3. Preliminary results also indicate its effect on the mRNA expression of estrogen receptors α and β. Collectively, these results indicate the possible risks...
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Mixture toxicity of estrogenic endocrine disruptors in samples from the Czech Republic
Černá, Tereza ; Cajthaml, Tomáš (advisor) ; Klusoň, Petr (referee) ; Šváb, Marek (referee)
The environment is contaminated by countless toxic chemicals of mainly anthropogenic origin; therefore, elucidating the impact of chemical mixtures is one of the biggest challenges of current research. Endocrine disruptors (EDs) acting through the oestrogenic nuclear receptor are typical representatives of the mixture toxicity concept of concentration addition, which can be accurately predicted using the latest mathematical models. Oestrogenic activity and oestrogenic EDs have been detected in many matrices across the globe in biologically relevant concentrations; therefore, they are considered a high risk. The presence of synthetic steroids in the aquatic environment in units of ng/l can disrupt the hormonal pathways of individuals and subsequently cause fatal changes in whole populations. However, if the exposure is terminated, the ecosystem will recover in a few years. Wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) are able to remove a large number of chemicals, including synthetic and natural oestrogenically active compounds; nevertheless, their occurrence in WWTP effluents and in sewage sludges is frequent. Therefore, WWTPs are considered significant sources of agricultural and water ecosystem pollution. This dissertation thesis focuses on the mixture toxicity of oestrogenic EDs and their occurrence in...
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Development of LC-MS method for determination of selected endocrine disruptors
Chvalkovská, Eliška ; Kučera, Radim (advisor) ; Štěrbová, Petra (referee)
Charles University Phaculty od Pharmacy in Hradec Králové Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Analysis Candidate: Eliška Chvalkovská Supervisor: doc. PharmDr. Radim Kučera, Ph.D. Consultant: Mgr. Martin Novák Title of thesis: Development of LC-MS method for determination of selected endocrine disruptors The thesis is focused on the development and optimization of LC-MS method for the determination of twelve endocrine disruptors in amniotic fluid of pregnant women in the third trimestr of pregnancy. There is a suspision that premature births are connected with an increased incidence of endocrine disruptors in amniotic fluid. The analytes were extracted by liquid-liqud extraction with 4-methylpentan-2- on. The analytical method is based on using reverse phase high-performance liquid chromatography with Hypersil C4 GOLD column (2.1 × 100 mm, particles 1.9 µm). For analysis the gradient elution with the mobile phase A (0.5% (v/v) formic acid aqueous solution) and B (0.5% (v/v) formic acid solution in acetonitrile) at a flow rate of 0.5 ml/min, injection 5 µl and column oven temperature 35 řC was used. The high- resolution mass spectrometer Orbitrap Q Exative Plus with atmospheric pressure chemical ionization in positive mode was used to identify and determine the response of...
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