Human exposure to vanadium (V) is anticipated because it is a drinking water contaminant. Due to limited data on soluble V salts, the National Toxicology Program is investigating the toxicity in rodents following drinking water exposure. Measurement of internal V dose allows for interpretation of toxicology data. The objective of this study was to develop and validate an inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometric method to quantitate total V in rat plasma. The method was linear (r ≥ 0.99) from 5.00 − 1,000 ng V/mL. Intra- and inter-day relative error (% RE) and relative standard deviation (% RSD) of spiked plasma samples were 8.5% to 15.6% RE and ≤ 1.8% RSD and 7.3% to 11.7% RE and ≤ 3.1% RSD, respectively. The limit of detection was 0.268 ng V/mL plasma and absolute percent recovery was 113%. Standards up to 7,500 ng V/mL plasma were diluted into the validated range (5.6% RE, 0.9% RSD). V in extracted plasma samples over 15 days at ambient and refrigerated conditions was from 97.7 to 126% of day 0. Determined plasma V concentrations after three freeze-thaw cycles and after frozen storage for up to 63 days ranged from 100 to 106% and 100 to 122% of day 0, respectively. The method was extended to rat urine (accuracy and precision −2.0 to 0.3% RE and <0.6% RSD, respectively for same linear range). These data demonstrate that the method is suitable to quantitate V in rat plasma and urine.
