DETERMINATION OF STANDARD ZINC VALUES IN THE INTACT TISSUES OF MICE BY ICP SPECTROMETRY

The most commonly encountered difficulties for the quantitative measur ement of zinc in biological samples are the limited sample amount, tot al and effective digestion of connective and fatty residues, and low z inc concentrations. These problems often lead to the determination of lower zinc values than actually present, so that the sample preparatio n, digestion, and analytical procedure deserve careful attention. In t his short communication, a new method for microwave tissue disintegrat ion is described. The authors have obtained consistent and reproducibl e results with tissue samples of 0.5 g or less.