Corresponding author: Seong-Su Moon http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8881-3927 Department of Internal Medicine, Dongguk University College of Medicine, 123 Dongdae-ro, Gyeongju 38066, Korea E-mail: [email protected] Recently, there has been increasing concern with regard to health problems due to exposure to environmental pollutants, such as substances found in our food and consumer or industrial ...

Two previously uncharacterized potential broad-spectrum mercury (Hg) resistance operons (mer) are present on the chromosome of the soil Alphaproteobacteria Xanthobacter autotrophicus Py2. These operons, mer1 and mer2, contain two features which are commonly found in mer operons in the genomes of soil and marine Alphaproteobacteria, but are not present in previously characterized mer operons: a ...

The atmospheric deposition of H+, SO4, and Hg to Little Rock Lake in northern Wisconsin has declined substantially during the past decade. Parallel decreases have been observed in the surface waters of the lake. Here we extend the observations to the fish community and we present evidence of a contemporaneous decline in levels of Hg in fish tissue. By comparing data from two separated basins of...

Digestive physiology links physiology to applications valued by society, such as understanding ecology and ecological toxicology and managing and conserving species. Here I illustrate this applied and integrative perspective with several avian case studies. The match between digestive features and diet provides evidence of tradeoffs that preclude doing well on all possible substrates with a sin...

In the mol-ecular structure of the title compound, {2,6-bis-[(di-methyl-amino)-meth-yl]phenyl-κ3N,C1,N'}[bromido/chlorido-(0.30/0.70)]mercury(II)-{2,6-bis-[(di-methyl-amino)-meth-yl]phenyl-κ3N,C1,N'}[bromido/chlorido-(0.24/0.76)]mer-cury(II) (1/1), [HgBr0.30Cl0.70(C12H19N2)]·[HgBr0.24Cl0.76(C12H19N2)], there are two mol-ecules in the asymmetric unit of formula LHgX {L = 2,6-bis-[(di-methyl-amin...

BACKGROUND Large-scale poisonings caused by methyl mercury (MeHg) have occurred in Japan (Minamata in the 1950s and Niigata in the 1960s) and Iraq (in the 1970s). The current WHO neurological risk standard for adult exposure (hair level: 50 μg/g) was based partly on evidence from Niigata which did not consider any cases who were diagnosed later and/or exposed to low level of MeHg (hair mercury ...

The prominence of sulfate reducers in mercury biomethylation prompted the examination of the methyl carrier and mercury methylation activity of Desulfovibrio desulfuricans LS. There was a low degree of mercury tolerance and a high degree of methylation during fermentative growth; the opposite was true during sulfate reduction. During 2 days of fermentative growth, up to 37% of HgCl2 was methyla...

I. Vezér, T., Schulz, H., Nagymajtényi, L.: memory effects following subchronic organic and inorganic lead administration in rats. J. Physiol. (London) 526: 162P-163P (2000) Impact factor: 4,455 II. Vezér, T., Papp, A., Nagymajtényi, L.: Behavioral and neurotoxicological alterations induced by subchronic inorganic lead and mercury treatment in rats. Neurobiology 9: 273 (2001) III. Vezér, T., Pa...

Based on in vitro studies and short-term in vivo studies, all mercurials were for a long time considered as prototypic immunosuppressive substances. Recent studies have confirmed that organic mercurials such as methyl mercury (MeHg) and ethyl mercury (EtHg) are much more potent immunosuppressors than inorganic mercury (Hg). However, Hg interacts with the immune system in the presence of a susce...