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Bioimaging of uranium and thorium in mice organs by laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry

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Abstract

The spatial distribution of thorium, uranium and other radioactive elements in biological tissues is significant for evaluating their migration, toxicity and possible decorporation mechanism, however, it is still a big challenge today for developing quantitative imaging by laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) due to the lack of matrix matched standards for calibration. Herein, a fast and reliable LA-ICP-MS quantitative imaging method was developed by using gelatin plus standard solution to prepare a self-made reference material containing 100 μg/g of U and Th, overcoming the inhomogeneity of the raw animal tissue standard. Then the elemental spatial distribution of kidney and liver tissues from mice were revealed by using LA-ICP-MS method. The results showed that U accumulated mainly in the kidney and slightly in the liver, while most of Th was distributed in the liver and few of that in kidney. It was found that U and Th were heterogeneously distributed in kidney section while homogeneously distributed in liver section.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Transformational Technologies for Clean Energy and Demonstration Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (XDA21000000), DNL Cooperation Fund, CAS (Grant No. DNL202008), the National Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 22179141), and Youth Innovation Promotion Association, Chinese Academy of Science (Grant No. 2022257).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Interfacial Physics and Technology, Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, 201800, China

    Xiaoyun Li, Jing Zhou, Zi-Jian Li, Linjuan Zhang & Jian-Qiang Wang

  2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Xiaoyun Li, Linjuan Zhang & Jian-Qiang Wang

  3. Soochow University, Suzhou, 215123, China

    Xiaomei Wang

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  1. Xiaoyun Li
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Li, X., Wang, X., Zhou, J. et al. Bioimaging of uranium and thorium in mice organs by laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. J Radioanal Nucl Chem 332, 2559–2569 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10967-023-08932-2

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