Abstract

The “state of the art” of chiral trace element speciation, that is, the recognition of the particular enantiomer in which the trace element sought is occurring, is given here. The importance of such studies and speciation information is highlighted. Recent advances and trends in the development and applications of analytical approaches for chiral speciation of trace elements in biological material are also reviewed. A comparative overview is given of existing selenoaminoacids chiral speciation methods, based on hybridization of an adequate chiral separation technique (e.g., high-performance liquid chromatography, gas chromatography or capillary electrophoresis) coupled on-line with selenium specific detection by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). Applications of these hybrid methodologies, reported so far in the literature, to selenoaminoacids chiral speciation in biological real samples are also reviewed.