Subcellular distribution of trace elements in wound granulation tissue of severe burn patients by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry

Abstract

A method for simultaneous and quantitative determination of Cr, Mn, Fe, Co, Cu, Zn, Se and Cd elements in the subcellular fractions of nuclei, mitochondria, lysosome, microsome and cytosol of wound granulation tissue of severe burn patients by octopole reaction system (ORS) inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) was established. Using differential centrifugation, the sample is separated into different subcellular fractions. The subcellular fraction was digested by HNO3 + H2O2 with microwave digestion followed by dilution with ultrapure water then the above 8 trace elements in the solution were analyzed directly by ICP-MS. In the presented method, using ORS eliminates the polyatomic interferences caused by the matrixes. Rh as internal standard element was used to compensate matrix effect and signal drift. The detection limits of the 8 elements are in the range of 0.72-33.05 ng x L(-1), and the RSD is less than 8.4%. The results showed that the levels of some elements in subcellular fractions of wound granulation tissues were significantly different from those of normal skin tissues. ORS-ICP-MS is a useful tool for simultaneous determination of multi-elements in wound granulation tissue of severe burn patients, and could be widely used in other biological samples analysis.