Contents

Season-Resolved Polarity and Compound-Origin Analysis of LC-HRMS Lettuce Rhizosphere Profiles Under Reclaimed-Water Irrigation

Author(s): B. Brus1
1Institute for Environmental Analysis Greenfield University United States
B. Brus
Institute for Environmental Analysis Greenfield University United States

Abstract

This article examines whether reclaimed-water irrigation leaves a detectable anthropogenic chemical signal in the lettuce (Lactuca sativa L.) rhizosphere when seasonal biology, root-zone matrix complexity, and ionization selectivity are evaluated separately. Eighteen rhizosphere samples were collected from tap-water, reclaimed-water 1, and reclaimed-water 2 treatments during fall 2021 and summer 2022, with three biological replicates for each treatment–season combination. The analytical sequence combined four specific evidence classes: acquisition-domain feature retention, designed-factor variance partitioning, polarity-specific annotation confidence, and compound-origin prioritization. Across positive MS1, positive MS2, negative MS1, and negative MS2 acquisition domains, 12,513 initial regions of interest yielded 10,046 retained features after blank and quality-control filtering, corresponding to 80.28% overall retention. Negative ionization retained 90.36% of its features, compared with 72.19% in positive ionization, indicating a root-zone chemical field enriched in negative-mode-compatible constituents. Designed-factor partitioning attributed 42.16% of total variance to season, 15.34% to irrigation-water type, 15.92% to the season–water interaction, and 26.58% to residual variation. Within the structured experimental fraction, season accounted for 57.42%, while irrigation-water type and the interaction contributed 20.89% and 21.68%, respectively. The annotation set comprised 37 tentative compounds: 31 endogenous or rhizosphere-associated constituents and six anthropogenic indicators, namely bisphenol A, fenoprofen, methylhexahydrophthalic anhydride, naproxen, terephthalic acid, and imiquimod. Reclaimed-water irrigation therefore produced a chemically visible indicator layer, but the broader rhizosphere profile was governed mainly by seasonal endogenous chemistry. These findings establish a season-resolved interpretation of reclaimed-water effects in which trace anthropogenic indicators are retained as monitoring targets without being allowed to dominate the biological reading of the rhizosphere profile.

Keywords: LC-HRMS; non-target screening; lettuce rhizosphere; reclaimed water
Copyright © 2025 B. Brus. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.