Jornal de Técnicas Analíticas e Bioanalíticas

Abstrato

Utilisation of Bovine Bone Pellet as a Matrix-Matched Reference Material for Calcified Tissues in LA-ICP-MS Application

Pingping Han, Yinghong Zhou, Shifeier Lu, Tain Lloyd, Thor Friis, Karine Moromizato, Charlotte Allen and Yin Xiao

One of the most challenging aspects of interpreting quantitative information of biological samples from laser inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) is a lack of appropriate matrix-matched internal standards that is needed for calibrations. There are standards available; however, most certified reference standard materials are suboptimal, due to the high variability and complexity of biological materials, especially for calcified tissues. In the present study, we described an approach in which bovine bone pellets are used as reliable matrixmatched standards for quantitative analysis of bone samples. Bovine tibial bones, sourced from a local butcher shop, were treated with or without autoclave sterilization. The samples were lyophilized over a 24 hour period, after which the elemental distributions in autoclaved, non-autoclaved bone pellets and naïve bone fragments were investigated using inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES) and LA-ICP-MS methods, in addition to homogeneity analysis of non-autoclaved bone pellets. The results demonstrated that non-autoclaved and autoclaved bone pellets shared similar average elemental concentrations after correcting for background signal; natural bone fragments, on the other hand, showed large sample variations. Factors such as low cost and ease of manufacture, “home-made” non-autoclaved bone pellets are the preferred option and these were subjected to further investigations. The homogeneity analysis revealed that non-autoclaved bone pellets had a higher degree of homogeneity, with minimal standard deviations and a uniform particle size of less than 100 μm. These results show that non-autoclaved bovine bone pellets are reliable and easy-to-make alternative to matrix-matched reference material with which to analyse calcified tissues by LA-ICP-MS.