Investigation of selenium distribution in subcellular fractions of human liver by neutron activation analysis

Selenium is an important and essential trace element to living systems. In the article, two methods of instrumental neutron activation analysis and hy dride generation-atomic fluorescence spectrometry were applied to determine Se in biological samples and the accuracy was evaluated by several referen ce materials. The subcellular distribution of selenium in human liver sampl es, which were obtained from normal subjects who had an accidental death, w as investigated by differential centrifugation combined with INAA. Selenium was mainly enriched in mitochondria, nuclei, and cytosol. Almost half of t he total Se content existed in nuclei as a result of the large amount in li ver and the high Se concentration. Generally, the highest Se concentration in the mitochondrial fractions of each liver sample suggested that Se had i mportant functions in this Liver component.