Luna Narváez, Diego FernandoLópez Alonso, María MartaCedeño Prócel, Yolanda MercedesRigueira Rey, LucasPereira Lestayo, VíctorMiranda Castañón, Marta Inés2020-03-262020-03-262019Luna, D.; López-Alonso, M.; Cedeño, Y.; Rigueira, L.; Pereira, V.; Miranda, M. Determination of Essential and Toxic Elements in Cattle Blood: Serum vs Plasma. Animals 2019, 9, 465http://hdl.handle.net/10347/20921This study was designed to evaluate the influence of type of blood sample (serum or plasma) on essential and toxic element analysis in cattle. Paired plasma and serum samples (n = 20) were acid digested, and the concentrations of As, B, Ba, Ca, Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Fe, Hg, Li, Mg, Mn. Mo, Ni, P, Pb, Sb, Se, Sr and Zn were determined by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). The study findings indicate that plasma and serum samples appear suitable and interchangeable for the determination of most of the essential and toxic elements in blood in cattle. The only exceptions are Cu and Se, the concentrations of which were significantly lower (40.9 and 29.9% respectively) in serum than in plasma. Some of the Cu in blood samples from bovine ruminants is known to be sequestered during clotting. However, further research on Se in ruminants and other animal species is warranted. Finally, the significantly higher Mn (9.9%) concentrations in serum than in plasma may have been caused by haemolysis of some samples. Special attention should be paid to preventing haemolysis of samples during collection and processing, in order to prevent overestimation of elements present at high concentrations inside erythrocytes (i.e., Fe, Mn and Zn)eng© 2019 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Trace and toxic elementsSerumPlasmaCattleICP-MSjournal article10.3390/ani90704652076-2615open access