The study of magnesium speciation in serum by liquid chromatography and graphite furnace atomic absorption techniques

The magnesium–protein complexes in human serum were separated and identified using a liquid chromatographic anion-exchange column with diode array detector for proteins and graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometry for magnesium. The conditions of separation were optimized taking into account the best magnesium determination in the pyrolytically coated graphite furnace. The serum sample was 2-fold diluted with a Tris buffer and for gradient elution 0.5 mol l−1 sodium acetate was used. It was found that magnesium is mainly associated with albumin and globulin fractions, but not with transferrin. Such separation was possible only with fresh serum samples.