Advances in Nontargeted Analysis of Per-and Polyfluorinated Substances (PFAS): New Tools to Streamline Annotation and Visualization

Description:
PFAS are diverse synthetic chemicals widely used in industry because of their thermal stability, hydrophobicity, and relative inertness. These “forever chemicals” have been found in food, food packaging, soil, water, clothing, and even personal care products and may cause harmful health effects. There are more than 14,000 PFAS compounds to date (EPA CompTox dashboard) and processing of non-targeted PFAS data is a huge bottleneck. This presentation highlights new tools to streamline PFAS annotation and visualization in nontargeted LC-QTOF MS analysis using FluoroMatch, a freely available open-source software from innovativeomics.com/software. FluoroMatch automates file conversion, chromatographic peak picking, blank feature filtering, PFAS annotation based on precursor and fragment masses, and annotation ranking. The software library contains ∼7,000 PFAS fragmentation patterns based on rules derived from standards and literature, and the software automates a process to add additional compounds. Optimization of the PFAS analysis workflow will also be discussed.

Speaker: Lorna De Leoz - Agilent Technologies
Dr. Lorna De Leoz is the Global Food Segment Manager at Agilent Technologies. Lorna has years of experience in the food industry as a bench chemist, graduate researcher, and mass spectrometry specialist. Before joining Agilent in 2018, she worked on building mass spectral reference data at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Lorna holds a Ph.D. in Chemistry from University of California Davis. One of her dissertation aims was understanding the interactions between milk oligosaccharides and the gut flora of infants.