Mercury Toxicity: Ecological Features of Organic
Phase of Mercury in Biota- Part I
Volume 3 - Issue 3
Loai Aljerf1* and Nuha AlMasri2
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- 1Department of Basic Sciences, Damascus University, Syria
- 2Department of Chemistry, Syrian Private University, Syria
*Corresponding author:
Loai Aljerf, Department of Basic Sciences, Faculty of Dental Medicine, Damascus University, Damascus, Syria
Received: May 25, 2018; Published: June 11, 2018
DOI: 10.32474/AOICS.2018.03.000157
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Abstract
Mercury is extensively used in industry with top usage in electrolytic chlorine. As a result of this elemental consumption in
industry, different forms of inorganic and organic mercury get into the environment in great piles every day and many of these
mercurial derivatives are converted to methylmercury by microorganisms. The study is assigned to inspect the ecological features
of organic mercury species in biological and marine environments. In addition, the paper takes into account the uptake and the
distribution of mercury in fish to investigate the conversion and mobilization of mercury from sediment deposits into the general
environment. It has been confirmed that the biological half-life of methylmercury in human is about 70 days. In methodology, molecular
identification of mercury has been defined. Monomethyl mercury in sediments was analyzed by gas chromatography (GC)
hyphenated with electron capture detector (ECD) and the confirmation was measured by mass spectroscopy (MS). The conversion
of mercury element to its organic species has been illustrated. In soil, it was found that lower pH favors monomethyl mercury and
the higher pH, dimethylmercury formation, respectively. Dimethylmercury is the biological poisoning product and methylmercury is
an artifact of isolation procedure. In next paper, we will turn to study the epidemiological features of organic phase of mercury and
investigate in deep the distribution, metabolism, and toxicity of mercury and methylmercury in some essential raw food materials,
domestic animal feedstock, and some other biological specimens using basically simple analytical methods of chromatography as
paper (PC) and thin layer (TLC).
Keywords: Industry, Mercurial derivatives, Microorganisms, Gas chromatography, Methylation rate
Abstract|
Introduction|
Methyl Mercury|
Results and Discussion|
Conclusion|
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