Selenium speciation profiles in selenite-enriched soybean (Glycine Max) by HPLC-ICPMS and ESI-ITMS

Soybean (Glycine Max) plants were grown in soil supplemented with sodium selenite. A comprehensive selenium profile, including total selenium concentration, distribution of high molecular weight selenium and characterization of low molecular weight selenium compounds, is reported for each plant compartment: bean, pod, leaf and root of the Se-enriched soybean plants. Two chromatographic techniques, coupled with inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICPMS) for specific selenium detection, were employed in this work to analyze extract solutions from the plant compartments. Size-exclusion chromatography revealed that the bean compartment, well-known for its strong ability to make proteins, produced high amounts (82% of total Se) of high molecular weight selenospecies, which may offer additional nutritional value and suggest high potential for studying proteins containing selenium in plants. The pod, leaf and root compartments primarily accumulate low molecular weight selenium species. For each compartment, low molecular weight selenium species (lower than 5 kDa) were characterized by ion-pairing reversed phase HPLC-ICPMS and confirmed by electrospray ionization ion trap mass spectrometry (ESI-ITMS). Selenomethionine and selenocystine are the predominant low molecular weight selenium compounds found in the bean, while inorganic selenium was the major species detected in other plant compartments.