State of the art report of selenium speciation in biological samples

Abstract

Selenium is an essential trace element for humans and animals. It plays a putative role in the prevention of cancer and other illnesses. The increasing use of selenium in food and fodder supplementation has resulted in a need for high-performance analytical methods allowing the characterisation of the marketed products. Reliable and validated analytical methods applied in this research field are urgently needed. This review presents the state-of-the-art of systematic developments concerning different aspects of qualitative and quantitative selenium speciation analyses in biological samples.