title: Application of chemometrics in understanding the spatial distribution of human pharmaceuticals in surface water.
abstract: The growing interest in the environmental occurrence of veterinary and human pharmaceuticals is essentially due to their possible health implications to humans and ecosystem. This study assesses the occurrence of human pharmaceuticals in a Malaysian tropical aquatic environment taking a chemometric approach using cluster analysis, discriminant analysis and principal component analysis. Water samples were collected from seven sampling stations along the heavily populated Langat River basin on the west coast of peninsular Malaysia and its main tributaries. Water samples were extracted using solid-phase extraction and analyzed using liquid chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) for 18 pharmaceuticals and one metabolite, which cover a range of six therapeutic classes widely consumed in Malaysia. Cluster analysis was applied to group both pharmaceutical pollutants and sampling stations. Cluster analysis successfully clustered sampling stations and pollutants into three major clusters. Discriminant analysis was applied to identify those pollutants which had a significant impact in the definition of clusters. Finally, principal component analysis using a three-component model determined the constitution and data variance explained by each of the three main principal components.
authors.affiliation: Centre of Excellence for Environmental Forensics, Faculty of Environmental Studies, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia. nagah99@yahoo.com
authors.forename: Najat Ahmed
authors.initials: NA
authors.lastname: Al-Odaini
authors.forename: Mohamad Pauzi
authors.initials: MP
authors.lastname: Zakaria
authors.forename: Muniirah Abdul
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Zali
authors.forename: Hafizan
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Juahir
authors.forename: Mohamad Ismail
authors.initials: MI
authors.lastname: Yaziz
authors.forename: Salmijah
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Surif
mesh_terms: D002853:Chromatography, Liquid; D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000379:methods*; D005618:Fresh Water / Q000737:chemistry*; D006801:Humans; D008296:Malaysia; D004364:Pharmaceutical Preparations / Q000032:analysis*; D053719:Tandem Mass Spectrometry; D014874:Water Pollutants, Chemical / Q000032:analysis*
chemical_list: D004364:Pharmaceutical Preparations; D014874:Water Pollutants, Chemical