Lameness is a major issue influencing dairy cow health.Lameness in dairy cows not only causes loss of appetite, reduction of milk production and reproduction performance, and an increase of rejection rates but also brings serious animal welfare issues.In past decades, researchers performed numerous studies on lameness in dairy cows, involving in incidence and risk factors of the lameness, the influences of lameness on milk production and reproduction performance, economic loss caused by lameness, and the relationship of lameness with genetics,nutrition, the number of somatic cells and mineral elements.These studies provided some basis for the prevention and control of lameness in dairy cows.However, to date, there have been few investigations on the changes of biochemical indicators in dairy cows suffering from different degrees of lameness, and their association of the biochemical indicators with the degrees of lameness in dairy cows.It had been reported that mineral elements,calcium (Ca), iron (Fe), copper (Cu), zinc (Zn), iodine (Ⅰ), selenium (Se), molybdenum (Mo), and chromium (Cr), are closely associated with development and diseases of hoof in dairy cows.In the plasma of dairy cows with 1-5 points of lameness, the mineral elements (Ca, Fe, Cu, Zn, I, Se, Mo, and Cr), the energy metabolic indicators [triglyceride (TG), glucose (Glu), total cholesterol (CHO), nonesterified fatty acids (NEFA), β-hydroxybutyrate (BHBA), lactate (LA), and blood urea nitrogen (BUN)], and inflammatory indexes [bovine haptoglobin (BoHp),histamine (HIS), and immunoglobulin G (IgG)] were measured, respectively.Furthermore, the correlations of the measured indicators with the degrees of lameness were analyzed.The results showed that in the plasma of dairy cows with 2/3-5 points of lameness, for the mineral elements levels, Ca, Cu, I, Se, and Fe significantly decreased,Cr significantly increased, and Mo showed a decreasing trend;for levels of the energy metabolism indicators, NEFA and BHBA significantly decreased, BUN and LA significantly increased, and Glu, CHO, and TG showed an increasing trend;for inflammation indexes, the concentrations of HIS, BoHp, and IgG all significantly increased;and further analysis indicated that the Mo, Fe, NEFA, BUN, BHBA, IgG, Ca, and Se had a significant correlation with the degrees of lameness.Resulting data revealed the changes of mineral elements, metabolism and inflammation indexes in the plasma of dairy cows suffering from different degrees of lameness, which will provided basic knowledge for in-depth understanding of lameness in dairy cows.