Audrius Maruska

Vytautas Magnus University · Instrumental Analysis Open Access Centre

Edible fungi are a valuable resource in the search for sustainable solutions to environmental pollution. Their ability to degrade organic pollutants, extract heavy metals, and restore ecological balance has a huge potential for bioremediation. They are also sustainable food resources. Edible fungi (basidiomycetes or fungi from other divisions) repr...

Bee pollen is one of the most valuable apitherapeutic products with high nutritional value. To obtain a higher diversity of compounds, higher bioactivity, and improve the release of nutrients from bee pollen, additional processing of the raw material may be applied: fermentation using microorganisms or hydrolysis using selective enzymes. This resea...

Regenerative medicine is a fast expanding scientific topic. One of the main areas of development directions in this field is the usage of additive manufacturing to fabricate functional components that would be later integrated directly into the human body. One such structure could be a microfluidic valve which could replace its biological counterpa...

Expansion of the microfluidics field dictates the necessity to constantly improve technologies used to produce such systems. One of the approaches which are used more and more is femtosecond (fs) direct laser writing (DLW). The subtractive model of DLW allows for directly producing microfluidic channels via ablation in an extremely simple and cost-...

Phthalates are plasticisers dangerous to ecosystems and humans.The paper aims to review the exposure of high-concern phthalates resulting from industrial and domestic activities to wastewater and analyse the advanced technologies used in European countries to remove phthalates from wastewater. We drew attention that many phthalates are not complete...

Phthalates are plasticisers dangerous to ecosystems and humans.The paper aims to review the exposure of high-concern phthalates resulting from industrial and domestic activities to wastewater and analyse the advanced technologies used in European countries to remove phthalates from wastewater. We drew attention that many phthalates are not complete...

This work involves a comprehensive chemical composition analysis of leaf and cone samples of Lithuanian hop varieties. This study aimed to determine the chemometric properties of the leaves and cones of five Lithuanian hop varieties. Determined properties were the following: (a) xanthohumol content, (b) phenolic compounds, (c) flavonoids, (d) radic...

Bee-collected pollen is one of the most valuable natural products. However, the pollen cell walls limit the digestibility and release of nutrients to the human body. Solid-state lactic acid fermentation can be used to ease the release of bioactive compounds from the pollen cell. The aim of this research was to determine the impact of a solid-state...

In this paper, a portable instrument for surface tension measurements, characterization and applications is described. The instrumentation is operated wirelessly, and samples can be measured in situ. The instrument has changeable different size probes; therefore, it is possible to measure samples from 1 ml up to 10 ml. The response of the measured...

The femtosecond (fs) laser is a well-established tool in material processing. Due to highly nonlinear light–matter interaction in a time frame shorter than heat dissipation from the laser affected zone, fs pulses enable extremely precise “cold processing”. Both additive and subtractive structuring can be realized. Here we demonstrate how medical de...

Unknown extraction recovery from solid matrix samples leads to meaningless chemical analysis results. It cannot always be determined, and it depends on the complexity of the matrix and properties of the extracted substances. This paper combines a mathematical model with the machine learning method—neural networks that predict liquid extraction reco...

Satureja hortensis L. is an annual herbaceous plant of the Lamiaceae Lindl. family. S. hortensis L., related to thyme and rosemary, is used as spice and traditional medicinal herb in Europe. Mainly due to the polyphenols contained in S. hortensis L., this plant exhibits multiple biological effects. However, therapeutic effects on cells, including s...

The aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of forest clear-cutting on the phenolic compounds and antiradical activity of Vaccinium myrtillus, Vaccinium vitis-idaea, and forest litter collected during the vegetation stages in 2 forests types (Pinetum vacciniosumand Pinetum vaccinio-myrtillosum). The Folin-Ciocalteu method, aluminum trichloride...

Application of selected starter cultures for sourdough propagation may ensure stable lactic acid bacteria (LAB) diversity and defined properties of sourdough that affect quality. The impact of Lactobacillus delbrueckii ssp. bulgaricus MI, L. rossiae GL14 and L. acidophilus DSM 20079 as starter cultures were investigated for spoilage prevention and...

In this work, the design and characterization of a multi-cell capacitively coupled contactless conductivity detection are described. The operation and simultaneous acquisition from 3 detector cells were demonstrated, however, the system is capable of supplying 8 detection cells and can be easily upgraded to maintain 64 capacitively coupled contactl...

The development of the instrument which will significantly ease the in situ samplings of volatile compounds is described. The purpose of this work was to design an automated, portable, handheld sample collection device that operates with monolithic adsorbents. The sampler contains two lithium-ion batteries, collects samples into micro-liter range v...

Hazardous remote places exist in the world. Why should health or life be risked sending a scientist to the investigation site, as the remote analytical instrumentation exists? Different scientific fields require instruments that could be used on-site (in situ), therefore the purpose of this work was to design a fully automated chemical analysis sys...

Capillary electrophoresis often causes unrepeatable peak migration times in the electropherogram due to changes of electroosmosis, yet in some cases this separation technique does not have a replacement alternative. Some attempts to overcome this issue have been performed introducing internal standards into the sample and compensating peak shifting...

The composition of volatile organic compounds contributes to fruit flavour and is an important element of fruit quality. Berries of sixteen cultivars and female clones of Actinidia kolomikta were studied by GC-MS with headspace solid phase microextraction method. In total, 89 compounds were separated and identified. These compounds were classified...

Wooden sleepers used in railways are impregnated with preservatives with fungicidic and bactericidic properties, which contain a large amount of harmful polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. The aim of this research was to reveal the type of fungi in the rhizosphere of plants, which tolerate pollutants and can be involved in bioremediation process of c...

Herpesviruses (HV) are pathogens causing infections in humans and animals worldwide. Since it shares many common features with other HV, bovine HV type 1 (BoHV-1) was selected as a model to test the anti-herpesviral activity of medicinal plants.Fifteen plants were chosen in this study for their medical, antibacterial and antiviral proper-ties. The...

Fermentation of various food products leads to better nutritional value, improved biological activities, enhanced extraction properties, etc. The impact of artificial solid-state lactic acid fermentation on bee pollen properties has not been fully studied. The aim of this study was to evaluate antibacterial, antifungal and antioxidant activities of...

The aim of this study was to compare the physichochemical composition of various bee products, namely, bee pollen, beebread, propolis, honey, and royal jelly. The samples (37 out of 53) were collected in Lithuania, several samples from other Europe countries (Italy, Denmark, Sweden, Slovakia, Poland, Spain, Republic of Malta, The Netherlands, Latvi...

The main task of the present study was to evaluate an impact of three nisin Z-producing Lactococcus lactis bacteria newly isolated from raw goat milk for some fresh cow cheese characteristics during the storage. Microbiological evaluation for Listeria monocytogenes, Staphylococcus aureus, and viable lactic acid bacteria counts and determination of...

Background Avian infectious bronchitis (IB) is a disease that can result in huge economic losses in the poultry industry. The high level of mutations of the IB virus (IBV) leads to the emergence of new serotypes and genotypes, and limits the efficacy of routine prevention. Medicinal plants, or substances derived from them, are being tested as optio...

The clear-cuts causes considerable changes to forest ecosystems, including physical and chemical changes to understory vegetation. Forest restoration processes strongly depend on the degree of disturbance caused by this activity. Our aim was to assess short-term changes to Vaccinium myrtillus and V. vitis-idaea populations in Pinus sylvestris - dom...

Portable and autonomous analytical instrumentation is becoming more important. Portable instrumentation can be designed via the miniaturization approach and this is a challenging task due to: (i) the limited battery power supply, (ii) a low number of mechanical and moving parts allowed in the design and (iii) susceptibility to changing environment...

The development of understory plants and attendant changes of pollinators immediately after clear-cut logging were studied in boreal Scots pine forests. Experiments were carried out in Vacciniosa and Vaccinio-myrtillosa forest types. Considerable decline of the dwarf shrub layer confirmed the negative reaction of this dominated understory life form...

The methodology described in this paper will significantly reduce the time required for understanding the relations between chromatographic data and bio-activity assays. The methodology is a hybrid of hypothesis based and data-driven scientific approaches. In this work, a novel chromatographic data segmentation method is proposed, which demonstrate...

The clear-cuts cause considerable changes to forest ecosystems, including physical and chemical changes to understory vegetation. Forest restoration processes strongly depend on the degree of disturbance caused by this activity. Our aim was to assess short-term changes to Vaccinium myrtillus and V. vitis-idaea populations in Pinus sylvestris-domina...

One of the main problems of the remote complex sample analysis instrumentation is that such systems are susceptible to temperature fluctuations. Temperature regulation is energetically ineffective, and it is not used in most of the field portable analytical systems. Separations performed in a changing temperature environment provide electropherogra...

The application of natural products for treatment and prevention of various diseases is becoming more important. Not only antibacterial natural preparations are being developed, but also antiviral natural products are investigated. There are two main problems in such investigations: (i) special chemical analysis and data analysis methods have to be...

Determination of natural preservatives using electrophoretic, or chromatographic techniques in fermented milk products is a complex task due to the following reasons: (i) the concentrations of the analytes can be below the detection limits, (ii) complex matrix and comigrating / coeluting compounds in the sample can interfere with the analytes of th...

ZIKV (Zika virus) is first major infectious disease related to human birth defects. ZIKV is flavivirus, family Flaviviridae causally associated with Guillain-Barre´SyndromeBarre´Syndrome, fetal microcephaly and other birth defects. Zika virus diseases discovered about 69 years ago and it remains in relative obscurity, within the span of two years i...

In the present work we demonstrate the novel approach to improve the sensitivity of the “out of lab” portable capillary electrophoretic measurements. Nowadays, many enhancement methods are: (i) underused (non-optimal), (ii) overused (distorts the data), or (iii) inapplicable in field-portable instrumentation due to lack of computational power. Desc...

Medicinal plants are reported to possess antiviral activity, but finding the substances that are responsible for antiviral activity in the complex mixture of the plant extract is an extremely difficult task. In this paper the methodology related to determination of antiviral properties of medicinal plant extracts and based on phytochemical analysis...

The aim of this study was to perform solid-state fermentation of bee collected pollen by lactic acid bacteria and evaluate the impact of fermentation to total phenolic compounds content, total flavonoid content and radical scavenging activity of fermented and non-fermented bee pollen. Natural fermentation of bee pollen in the hive, done by bees, re...

This study was aimed to screen for nisin producing Lactococcus lactis strains with prominent antimicrobial and technological characteristics applicable for the dairy industry. Twelve out of 181 Lactococcus spp. strains isolated from goat and cow milk, fermented wheat and buckwheat samples were identified as L. lactis strains harbouring nisin A, Z o...

A serious concern for the environmental and human health is represented by the increasing copper (Cu) occurrence in agricultural soils and waters, because of the possible food contamination and bioaugmentation along the trophic chain. The request for the decontamination of different matrices with an environmentally sustainable technology as the phy...

The kiwi fruit, Actinidia kolomikta, has valuable properties such as high antioxidant activity, high vitamin C, polyphenols, chlorophylls and organic acids content, but the species are hardly commercialized due to their short shelf life (less than two days). In this study three different cultivars of A. kolomikta (Anykšta, Sentiabrskaya and VIR2) w...

E. ciliata (Lamiaceae) is very interesting and promising herb mainly for chemical composition and pharmacological activities. The aim of this study was to determine chemical composition of the essential oils of fresh, frozen and dried herbal materials of E. ciliata and compare different extraction methods This is the first study on composition of E...

The studies were carried out in the period of 2013–2014 in experiment developed during plant vegetation, cultivating five plant species in the vegetative pots with the substrate contaminated with used sleepers (US) and uncontaminated substrate fertilised with nitrogenous fertilisers. The objective of the research is to analyse the morphological fea...

Purpose: To evaluate the antiproliferative effect of the aerial part of Chamerion angustifolium (L.) Holub. (Onagraceae) extract and its fractions in vitro. This is the first study on the anti-proliferative effect of C. angustifolium on 3 distinct breast cancer cell lines. Material/methods: Breast cancer cell lines MCF7, MDA-MB-468 and MDA-MB-23...

Dominant plant species established in the understory of clear-cuts may have a strong biochemical influence on pine regeneration process, with important consequences for reforestation management. We evaluated and compared the total phenolic content and the allelopathic activity of acqueous extracts from both roots and shoots of dominant plant specie...

The scientific interest for the search of natural means of microbial inhibitors has not faded for several years. A search of natural antibiotics, so-called bacteriocins which are produced by lactic acid bacteria (LAB), gains a huge attention of the scientists in the last century, in order to reduce the usage of synthetic food additives. Pure bacter...

Pharmaceutical gases molecules (Therapeutic medical Gases) are plays vital role in various disease conditions. In particular, Carbon monoxide, Oxygen, Nitric oxide, Hydrogen sulfide are generated in the human body and mediate signaling pathways as biological messengers and shown pharmacological effects on cardiovascular disorders, nervous system, r...

This study describes the analysis of total hops essential oils from 18 cultivated varieties of hops, five of which were bred in Lithuania, and 7 wild hop forms using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. The study sought to organise the samples of hops into clusters, according to 72 semi-volatile compounds, by applying a well-known method

Stable isotope analysis was applied to describe the poultry house environment. The poultry house indoor environment was selected for this study due to the relevant health problems in animals and their caretakers. Air quality parameters including temperature, relative humidity, airflow rate, NH3, CO2 and total suspended particles, as well as mean le...

Plant biotechnology provides a possibility to create new varieties of plants that are of improved resistance for diseases and higher productivity. Medicinal plants currently gain high attention in biomedical and biotechnological research fields. Mainly they occur in nature as diploids. Using biotechnological modification polyploidal forms of medici...

Process analytical technology (PAT) has been defined as a mechanism to design, analyze and control pharmaceutical manufacturing processes through measurement of critical process parameters which affect critical quality attributes. PAT checks the quality of raw material attributes both physically and chemically (i.e. at off-line, on-line, in-line)....

The miniaturization and optimization of a white rot fungal bioremediation experiment is described in this paper. The optimized procedure allows determination of the degradation kinetics of anthracene. The miniaturized procedure requires only 2.5 ml of culture medium. The experiment is more precise, robust, and better controlled comparing it to clas...

A group of 36 fungal strains, belonging to the Lithuanian mycobiota, was collected and isolated from different locations, habitats, and matrices, including creosote-treated wood in storage yards for crosstie wastes. The eight most perspective strains selected according to preliminary assessment of tolerance to coal tar were subsequently identified...

The purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea (L.) Moench) is one of the most promising medicinal plants in Lithuania. More than 200 biologically active substances, and the most important components among them – phenolic acids, including chicoric acid are accumulated in the medicinal plant raw material. Moisture content of purple coneflower raw materia...

Creosote oil is a complex mixture of hydrocarbon compounds obtained from high temperature distillation of coal tar. It is used for over 100 years as a fungicide, insecticide, miticide, and sporicide to protect wood and is applied by pressure methods to wood products, primary utility poles and railroad ties. This treated wood is intended for exterio...

Since biological activity of medicinal plants is dependent on cultivation area, climatic conditions, developmental stage, genetic modifications and other factors, it is important to study flora present in different growing sites and geographical zones. This study was focused on screening of antioxidant activity of C. angustifolium harvested in six...

Propolis is the bee product noted for multiple biological effects, and therefore it is widely used for the prevention and treatment of a variety of diseases. The active substances of propolis are easily soluble in ethanol. However ethanolic extracts cannot be used in treatment of certain diseases encountered in ophthalmology, pediatrics, etc. Unfor...

The science of today focuses on miniaturized techniques. Contactless conductivity detectors offer following advantages: cost effectiveness, high performance, simple integration, low energy consumption and possibility to miniaturize. Many of applications for capillary electrophoresis and ion chromatography coupled to first generation contactless con...

In medicinal plants are found biologically active chemical compounds: alkaloids, flavonoids, glycosides, tannins, saponins, phenols, essential oils etc. These compounds are known as secondary metabolites. That plants accumulate mainly phenolic. Bidens tripartita L. was selected as phytochemical investigation object. It belongs to the family of Aste...

The nutritional strategies to improve the quality of food products of animal origin are relatively new approach. In this work the solid state fermentation (SSF) and traditional submerged fermentation (TF) with bacteriocin-like inhibitory substances (BLIS) producing lactic acid bacteria was applied for treatment of Satureja montana L. plants (SMP)....

The aim of this study was to determine total amounts of phenolics and flavonoids, radical scavenging activities, and compositions of phenolic and volatile compounds in 14 samples of honeybee pollen collected in the Baltic region. Radical 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) scavenging activities and total amounts of phenolics and flavonoids were ev...

Recovery of Bidens tripartita L. volatiles using supercritical CO2 extraction with solid-phase trap was performed in this study. Three points were analyzed: the impact of rinse solvent (heptane, methanol or acetonitrile) for analytes desorption from the trap; the impact of the amount of plant material used for extraction; the release of volatiles f...

Characterization of volatile compounds composition and evaluation of antioxidant properties of bee pollen collected in Lithuania is presented in the paper, which is the first study on pollen of Lithuanian origin to our knowledge. Three polyfloral pollen samples collected by honey bees were analyzed. Characterization of volatile compounds was perfor...

The capacitance-to-digital single chip detector was upgraded. The paper discusses hardware issues and benefits of the designed/ upgraded detector. The device can be operated from rechargeable lithium-ion battery as stand-alone, portable system and is capable of transmitting real-time data wirelessly. The detector and additional modules (battery, ba...

This paper was presented in the 9th International Conference "The Vital Nature Sign", held in Kaunas, 14-16 May 2015. The screening of PAH in used wooden railway sleepers treated with coal tar and creosote for their protection against biodegradation has been made. The analysis was based on cold solvent extraction and Soxhlet extraction of PAH using...

Construction of a contactless conductivity detector with a separate small dimension detection cell and integration into an automated capillary electrophoresis device is described. An optimized separation procedure of the pressurized hot water extract of Hibiscus sabdariffa L. and implementation of L-ascorbic acid as a novel background electrolyte i...

A capacitance-to-digital converter integrated circuit was implemented in an automated capillary electrophoresis device as a single chip detector. In this paper, design and hardware issues related to the fabrication and application of a miniature detector for contactless measurement of complex impedance are discussed. The capacitance-to-digital conv...

The main aim of investigations was to identify chemotypes and determine differences between some domestic hop varieties and wild hops, which were collected from some regions of Lithuania and cultivated at the same edafoclimatic conditions in hops collection of Kaunas Botanical Garden of Vytautas Magnus University. One of objectives was to compare e...

The aim of this study was to evaluate the influence of additives of Jerusalem artichoke (JA), fermented with P. acidilactici KTU05-7, P. pentosaceus KTU05-9, L. sakei KTU05-6, on the quality and safety parameters of ready – to cook – minced pork (RCMP). Fermented JA additives re-duced pH of the meat products and decreased water holding capacity (WH...

Batch 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPHc) and on-line HPLC/UV/DPPHc radical scavenging assays were compared for the rapid screening of antioxidant properties of extracts of six Lamiaceae family spices, namely Origanum vulgare, Ocimum basilicum, Rosmarinus officinalis, Origanum majorana, Thymus vulgaris and Satureja hortensis. Generally, all spice...

Abstract. The present study is aimed at selection of the optimal conditions for solid state fermentation of flaxseed, white lupine, defatted soy flours and Jerusalem artichoke tubers and integrated evaluation of the changes of product physico-chemical properties during the processing. The moisture content, pH kinetic and total titratable acidity (T...

Six samples of propolis were analyzed in the paper: a sample from Brazil, Estonia, China and three samples from different locations of Uruguay. Static headspace technique coupled with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry analysis has been applied for the determination of the characteristic volatile profile with the aim to differentiate the propolis...

Willow herb has been traditionally used in folk medicine and currently it is a potential raw material for production of phytopharmaceuticals. The aim of this work was to determine the highest amount of flavonoids and the highest radical scavenging activity of willow herb, which was collected in different vegetation phases (intensive growing, bud, m...

Cited By (since 1996):2, Export Date: 18 October 2014

The aim of this study was to carry out quantitative and qualitative analyses of essential oils, determine the in vitro antifungal activities of essential oils against fungi present in animals indoor environments. Quantitative and qualitative analyses of essential oils of Monarda didyma L., Lamium album L., and Myrrhis odorata L. obtained by the sup...

The nutritional strategies to improve the quality of food products of animal origin are relatively new approach. In this work the solid state fermentation (SSF) and traditional submerged fermentation (TF) with bacteriocin-like inhibitory substances (BLIS) producing lactic acid bacteria was applied for treatment of Satureja montana L. plants (SMP)....

There is a lack of research focussing on Liriodendron tulipifera L. and Ginkgo biloba L. introduced in Lithuania. Moreover, extensive comparative phytochemical studies of these two relict plants have not yet been carried out. Therefore the aim of this study was a complex comparative analysis of biologically active compounds of these two plants intr...

In the present study Silybum marianum L. seeds were fermented using solid-state fer-mentation (SSF) with several lactic acid bacteria (LAB) of Lactobacillus and Pediococcus genera, isolated from spontaneous Lithuanian rye sourdough. A possibility to improve sensory properties (flavour) of Silybum marianum L. seeds using LAB fermentation was investi...

Plant secondary metabolites are important naturally occurring substances from renewable sources, which can be used for disinfections of animal farms. This research focuses on antimicrobial activities of plant compounds (phenols, flavonoids, essential oils) isolated and identified from species of Lamium album L., Rosmarinus officinalis L., Monarda d...

Enantiomers represent a class of compounds extensively investigated since they can show totally different behaviors when they interact with a chiral environment. Because of their identical chemical structure (they differ only in the spatial arrangement of the atoms in the molecule), the separation of optical isomers is a challenging task of analyti...

In this work a new, accurate and reliable method, which has been applied to determine the quantitative and qualitative composition of free fatty acids in samples of laundry and toilet soap, is described. Silylation as a derivatization method for analysis of free fatty acids in soap samples by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, using ammonium sul...

The aim of this study was to evaluate the variation of essential oils composition of Bidens tripartita L. collected during three successive years (2009–2011). Essential oils were obtained by supercritical CO2 extraction, applying gas chromatographic–mass spectrometric (GC–MS) analysis for identification of volatile compounds afterwards. The essenti...

Enantioseparations of racemic nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (naproxen, ibuprofen, ketoprofen, flurbiprofen, suprofen, indoprofen, cicloprofen, and carprofen) were performed by nano-liquid chromatography, employing achiral capillary columns and heptakis(2,3,6-tri-O-methyl)-β-cyclodextrin (TM-β-CD) or hydroxylpropyl-β-cyclodextrin (HP-β-CD) as...