Research Progress on Speciation of Selenium Compounds in Plants

Selenium(Se) is an essential trace element, which humans and animals take directly or indirectly from plants.This paper reviewed the recent research progress on speciation of selenium compounds in plants,including the kinds of selenium compounds and their metabolic pathways,and the technology for sample treatment,separation,and determination. Organic selenium compounds are the major parts of the selenium speciation in plants.The technology of ultrasonic-microwave synergistic extraction combined with enzymatic hydrolysis is useful in sample preparation.HPLC-ICP-MS is widely used in determining selenium speciation.It is important to develop more standard selenium compounds and pay more attention to selenoprotein in plants.ESMS,ESMS -MS and MALDI-TOF can be applied to identifying the unknown selenium compounds.The application of IDA in determining both the metabolic pathways and the structure of large selenium molecules will be a major aspect for the future research.