SELENIUM DETERMINATION IN WHOLE BLOOD, PLASMA AND SELENOPROTEIN P BY HYDRIDE GENERATION ATOMIC FLUORESCENCE SPECTROMETRY†

 

Darja Mazej, Ingrid Falnoga, Vekoslava Stibilj

 

Jožef Stefan Institute, Ljubljana, Slovenia

 

Abstract

Selenium was determined in whole blood, plasma and plasma protein fractions SeP and (GSH-Px+Alb) obtained by affinity chromatography. For the digestion of whole blood and plasma samples a simple digestion procedure using H₂SO₄, H₂O₂ and V₂O₅ in H₂SO₄ solution was developed, while for the decomposition of plasma protein fractions HNO₃ and H₂O₂ were sufficient. After both procedures detection of Se was made by HG-AFS and this combination gave reliable results. Dilution of the GSH-Px+Alb fraction was reduced by lyophilisation of pooled subfractions. The main advantages of the described procedures are low detection limit (0.2 ng Se/g of solution) and the large number of samples analysed in a short time as only two analyses are needed for determination of the percentage of Se in SeP in plasma sample.

The procedures developed were used to determine selenium in real samples from which an average mass fraction of selenium in whole blood of Slovenia residents of 87 ± 13 ng/g (n=43) and Se in SeP of 70 ± 9% (n=5) were found. Both values are comparable with literature data for the general population.