I am planning to determine the amount of Zinc released and distributed from Zinc oxide Nanoparticles in in vivo conditions in organs and blood of mice. As cost and availability of instrument is a limiting factor, I would like to know techniques other than ICP-AES/ ICP-MS for the analysis.
You can use direct measurement of Zinc by (AAS) Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy
Also you can use Zinc Assay Kit
All Link below:
http://www.clinchem.org/content/25/8/1487.full.pdf
http://www.abnova.com/protocol_pdf/KA1619.pdf
http://www.abcam.com/zinc-quantification-kit-ab102507.html
http://www.biovision.com/zinc-colorimetric-assay-kit-4163.html
Another technics could be the Voltammetry (Anodic stripping, square wave or cyclic) after dilution of the blood or digestion of the organs. It is a rather cheap technic although a bit time consuming but also allow to measure Cd, Pb and Cu on the way.
Hi, Hope you are well.
Yes one can use AAS, even ICP-MS would yield better minimum detection limits.
I use particle-induced X-ray emission (PIXE), particle-induced gamma-ray emission (PIGE) and Scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The preparation is hassle-free. Simply freeze-dry an aliquot of blood, pulverize it, press into a tablet and coat with a thin layer of carbon. Many Universities have these facilities either available of have access to the facilities.. The beauty of it all is that you can keep the tablet for as long as you want in a dust-free atmosphere and perform analysis again and again.
With PIXE elements form Al to say, U can be analysed. PIGE for elements below Al and even isotopes. SEM for the C, O, Na, Mg etc- here remember that H is not determined-I use 16.167% of C concentration as H concentration (did not this publish yet). More beautiful is that before coating with carbon layer the dried specimen can be used for LC-MS analysis and determine phophatidyls ect. the organics in the blood.
You also have a 97 times dilution already.
Ok I know that it was only for Zn, but rather have all others available for comparison. Let me know where you are and I will indicate facilities nearby. Regards.
Thank you Jyoti, Dr Andre and Laurent for your valuable suggestions, the infos you provided were very much useful
I doubt that you can measure by any method the release of zinc from nanoparticles into the blood of mice. The normal zinc concentration in blood is so high that a contribution from nanoparticles could only me measured for unrealistic high NP concentrations
I agree with Dr. Sperling regarding the already high Zn content in blood that could hamper your capacity to differentiate the added nanoP Zn from the original one. Indeed, you'll need to add quite a large amount of nanoP depending of the precision of the analytical technique used (ICP-MS is probably best in this case). Hopefully, nano Zn is generally very soluble in blood so you should be able to establish a protocol that match your needs and constrains.
I think the only way to measure nanoparticles beside the amount of Zn ions is to try to separate particles from ions (centrifugation, filtration, precipitation of the particles).
That's a long way to go. I agree with Michael Sperling in his statement.
To measure Zn NP's in blood already is a challenging task that requires at least very sophisticated instrumentation such as FFF-ICP-MS or HPLC-ICP-MS. To measure the additional ionic Zn resulting from dissolution of NP's seems to me simply impossible for meaningful NP concentrations.
For what reason are you interested in the additional Zn concentration ? There is homeostasis acting on the Zn concentration !
You asked for cheap instrumentation and therefore I did not mention isotope tracers. The use of iotopically labeled NPs seem to be the best way to differentiate added Zn from the natural background.
Perkin Elmer is going to submit a software tool to run with the NexION ICP-MS, which provides the opportunity to detect nanoparticles beside ions. We run the NexION and are looking forward to this new software.
Michael thank you for the answers. We are going to use zinc oxide nanoparticles, and in animal studies we want to find out the biodistribution
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Chemistry
- Nanotechnology
- Nanostructured Materials
- Nanoparticles