Quantifying manganese in lymphocytes to assess manganese nutritional status.

To clarify whether manganese nutritional status is better reflected by the manganese concentration in lymphocytes or in whole blood, we injected manganese solutions intravenously into manganese-deficient rats and determined manganese concentrations in lymphocytes, whole blood, and various tissues. The manganese concentrations in lymphocytes and tissues, but not in whole blood, were significantly l…