Haoqi Nina Zhao

University of Washington | UW · Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

N-acyl lipids are important mediators of several biological processes including immune function and stress response. To enhance the detection of N-acyl lipids with untargeted mass spectrometry-based metabolomics, we created a reference spectral library retrieving N-acyl lipid patterns from 2,700 public datasets, identifying 851 N-acyl lipids that w...

Despite extensive efforts, extracting information on medication exposure from clinical records remains challenging. To complement this approach, we developed the tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) based GNPS Drug Library. This resource integrates MS/MS data for drugs and their metabolites/analogs with controlled vocabularies on exposure sources, phar...

The skin is complex with multiple layers serving protective, regulatory, and detective functions. The skin hosts chemicals originating from consumption, synthesis, and the environment. Skin chemicals can provide insight into one's daily routine or their level of safety in a work environment. The goal of this study was to investigate the utility of...

Understanding the distribution of hundreds of thousands of plant metabolites across the plant kingdom presents a challenge. To address this, we curated publicly available LC-MS/MS data from 19,075 plant extracts and developed the plantMASST reference database encompassing 246 botanical families, 1,469 genera, and 2,793 species. This taxonomically f...

Public untargeted metabolomics data is a growing resource for metabolite and phenotype discovery; however, accessing and utilizing these data across repositories pose significant challenges. Therefore, we've developed pan-repository universal identifiers and harmonized cross-repository metadata. This novel ecosystem facilitates discovery by integra...

Skin microbiome can be altered in patients with atopic dermatitis (AD). An understanding of the changes from healthy to atopic skin can help develop new targets for treatment by identifying microbial and molecular biomarkers. This study investigates the skin microbiome and metabolome of healthy adult subjects and lesion (ADL) and non-lesion (ADNL)...

White teeth can give confidence and tend to be associated with a healthier lifestyle in modern society. Therefore, tooth-bleaching strategies have been developed, including the use of hydrogen peroxide. Recently, peroxymonosulfate has been introduced as an alternative bleaching method to hydrogen peroxide. Although both chemicals are oxidizing agen...

The rubber antioxidant 6PPD has gained significant attention due to its highly toxic transformation product, 6PPD-quinone (6PPDQ). Despite their detection in urines of pregnant women, the placental transfer and developmental toxicity of 6PPD and 6PPDQ are unknown. Here, we treated C57Bl/6 mice with 4 mg/kg 6PPD or 6PPDQ to investigate their urine e...

Skin microbiome can be altered in patients with Atopic Dermatitis (AD). An understanding of the changes from healthy to atopic skin can help develop new targets for better treatments and identify specific microbial or molecular biomarkers. This study investigates the skin microbiome and metabolome of healthy subjects and lesion (ADL) and non-lesion...

White teeth can give confidence and tend to be associated with a healthier lifestyle in modern society. Therefore, modern tooth bleaching strategies have been developed, including the use of hydrogen peroxide and peroxymonosulfate. Although both molecules are oxidizing agents, their effects on the molecular composition of the stained teeth are yet...

We here report chemical characteristics relevant to the fate and transport of the recently discovered environmental toxicant 6PPD-quinone (2-((4-methylpentan-2-yl)amino)-5-(phenylamino)cyclohexa-2,5-diene-1,4-dione or "6PPDQ"). 6PPDQ is a transformation product of the tire rubber antioxidant 6PPD that is ubiquitous in roadway environments, includin...

6PPD, a tire rubber antioxidant, poses substantial ecological risks because it can form a highly toxic quinone transformation product (TP), 6PPD-quinone (6PPDQ), during exposure to gas-phase ozone. Important data gaps exist regarding the structures, reaction mechanisms, and environmental occurrence of TPs from 6PPD ozonation. To address these data...

Recently, roadway releases of N,N'-substituted p-phenylenediamine (PPD) antioxidants and their transformation products (TPs) received significant attention due to the highly toxic 6PPD-quinone. However, the occurrence of PPDs and TPs in recycled tire rubber products remains uncharacterized. Here, we analyzed tire wear particles (TWPs), recycled rub...

Even though raw mass spectrometry data is information rich, the vast majority of the data is underutilized. The ability to interrogate these rich datasets is handicapped by the limited capability and flexibility of existing software. We introduce the Mass Spec Query Language (MassQL) that addresses these issues by enabling an expressive set of mass...

Current aquatic toxicity assessments usually focus on targeted analyses coupled with toxicity testing to determine the impacts of complex mixtures on aquatic organisms. However, based on this approach alone, it is sometimes difficult to explain observed toxicity from the selected chemical analytes. Recent analytical advances such as high-resolution...

Tire tread particles turn streams toxic For coho salmon in the U.S. Pacific Northwest, returning to spawn in urban and suburban streams can be deadly. Regular acute mortality events are tied, in particular, to stormwater runoff, but the identity of the causative toxicant(s) has not been known. Starting from leachate from new and aged tire tread wea...

This study used suspect and non-target screening with high-resolution mass spectrometry to characterize the occurrence of contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) in the nearshore marine environment of Puget Sound (WA, USA). In total, 87 non-polymeric CECs were identified; those confirmed with reference standards (45) included pharmaceuticals, herbi...

Pollutants transported in urban stormwater runoff induce pervasive water quality degradation in receiving waters. To accurately characterize stormwater quality and treatment system performance across the range of possible contaminant characteristics, comprehensive multi-residue analytical methods are necessary. Here, we developed a solid-phase extr...

This study evaluated the sorption and transport potential of seven phototransformation products of 17α-trenbolone, 17β-trenbolone, trendione, and altrenogest, along with the parent trienone steroids in batch and column soil-water systems. In batch systems, the target solutes exhibited linear isotherms, with values for sorption coefficients (logKoc)...

Here, we developed a novel and sensitive method for the detection and quantification of metastable trenbolone and altrenogest photoproducts in agricultural receiving waters based on solid phase extraction (SPE) and liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). Primary method analytes were seven cycloaddition or photohydration transform...

Oligomeric organophosphorus flame retardants (o-OPFRs) are extensively used as substitutes for decabromodiphenyl ether. However, little is currently known about their occurrence in aquatic environments, their bioaccumulation, or their trophic transfer. In this study, concentrations of two o-OPFRs, bisphenol A bis(diphenyl phosphate) (BPA-BDPP) and...

Despite increasing use of organophosphorus flame retardants (OPFRs), their food web transfer behavior is not well known. In this study, concentrations of fourteen OPFRs were measured in 17 species from Taihu Lake, China, and their trophodynamics were assessed. Of the 14 OPFRs, nine were detected in at least 70% of the food web samples, including tr...

Despite the increasing use and discharge of novel brominated flame retardants, little information is available about their trophodynamics in the aquatic food web, and their subsequent relationships to compound metabolism. In this study, concentrations of 2,4,6-tribromophenyl allyl ether (ATE), 1,2-dibromo-4-(1,2-dibromoethyl)cyclohexane (TBECH), te...

While (N-ethyl perfluorooctanesulfonamido ethanol)-based phosphates (SAmPAPs) have been proposed as a group of perfluorooctanesulfonate (PFOS) precursors, investigation of their occurrence and fate has been limited to SAmPAP diester. In this study, SAmPAP diester and triester were simultaneously determined in freshwater sediment from Taihu Lake usi...

While a recent toxicological study has shown that organophosphorus flame retardants (OPFRs) may disrupt sphingolipid homeostasis, epidemiologic evidence is currently lacking. In this study, a total of 257 participants were recruited from Shenzhen, China. Eleven OPFRs were for the first time simultaneously determined in the human blood samples by ul...