Chemical Forms of Mercury in Human Hair Reveal Sources of Exposure
- 22 September 2016
- journal article
- research article
- Published by American Chemical Society (ACS) in Environmental Science & Technology
- Vol. 50 (19), 10721-10729
- https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.6b03468
Abstract
Humans are contaminated by mercury in different forms from different sources. In practice, contamination by methylmercury from fish consumption is assessed by measuring hair mercury concentration, whereas exposure to elemental and inorganic mercury from other sources is tested by analysis of blood or urine. Here, we show that diverse sources of hair mercury at concentrations as low as 0.5 ppm can be individually identified by specific coordination to C, N, and S ligands with high energy-resolution X-ray absorption spectroscopy. Methylmercury from seafood, ethylmercury used as a bactericide, inorganic mercury from dental amalgams, and exogenously derived atmospheric mercury bind in distinctive intermolecular configurations to hair proteins, as supported by molecular modeling. A mercury spike located by X-ray nanofluorescence on one hair strand could even be dated to removal of a single dental amalgam. Chemical forms of other known or putative toxic metals in human tissues could be identified by this approach with potential broader applications to forensic, energy, and materials science.Keywords
Funding Information
- Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR-10-EQPX-27-01, ANR-12-BS06-0008-01)
- Biological and Environmental Research (DE-SC0001730)
- Division of Earth Sciences (EAR-0952311)
This publication has 79 references indexed in Scilit:
- Comparative study on methyl- and ethylmercury-induced toxicity in C6 glioma cells and the potential role of LAT-1 in mediating mercurial-thiol complexes uptakeNeuroToxicology, 2013
- Aqueous microsolvation of HgClOH. A systematic MP2 study of the HgClOH–(H2O)n species with n=1–4Computational and Theoretical Chemistry, 2013
- Structural basis for heteromeric assembly and perinuclear organization of keratin filamentsNature Structural & Molecular Biology, 2012
- Glutathione Complex Formation with Mercury(II) in Aqueous Solution at Physiological pHChemical Research in Toxicology, 2010
- Cysteine residues exposed on protein surfaces are the dominant intramitochondrial thiol and may protect against oxidative damageThe FEBS Journal, 2010
- Characterizing arsenic in preserved hair for assessing exposure potential and discriminating poisoningJournal of Synchrotron Radiation, 2009
- The methylmercury‐l‐cysteine conjugate is a substrate for the L‐type large neutral amino acid transporterJournal of Neurochemistry, 2008
- Migration of mercury from dental amalgam through human teethJournal of Synchrotron Radiation, 2008
- Human hair keratin-associated proteins: Sequence regularities and structural implicationsJournal of Structural Biology, 2006
- Methylation of mercury from dental amalgam and mercuric chloride by oral streptococci in vitroEuropean Journal of Oral Sciences, 1983