The available data on the influence of selenium on the toxicity of methylmercury and of methylmercury on selenium as a nutrient and toxic agent are reviewed. Selenium as selenite has a relative protective effect on acute and subacute toxicity of methylmercury in the rat and the quail. The protective mechanism is far from clear. Of special interest is the fact that selenium-treated animals may r...

More than fifty years have passed since the outbreak of Minamata disease, and large-scale methylmercury poisoning due to industrial effluents or methylmercury-containing fungicide intoxication has scarcely happened in developed countries. On the other hand, widespread environmental mercury contamination has occurred in gold and mercury mining areas of developing countries. In this article, we p...

Exposure to methylmercury causes severe damage to various tissues and organs in humans. Although a variety of fluorescent chemosensors have been exploited, only few biological monitoring systems for organomercury species have been described to date. In this report, we describe an irreversible rhodamine chemosensor for the detection of methylmercury and real-time monitoring of methylmercury in l...

BACKGROUND Exposure to methylmercury was shown to decrease neural stem cell populations, whereas aerobic fitness has beneficial effects on the adult brain that relies on improved neurogenesis in the hippocampus. OBJECTIVES We examined the association between aerobic fitness and neurocognitive outcomes at young adult age, along with the potential moderating effect of prenatal exposure to methy...

The present study was undertaken to investigate the precursory effects of methylmercury poisoning by measuring the locomotor activity of rats. Methylmercury was administered to male rats mixed in the rat food. The period of administration was 30 days. The effects on the rats exposed to a level of 100 ppm of methylmercury were evaluated from the 6th week to the time of death, based on the locomo...

VVe searched a yeast genomic library fbr genes that conferred methylmercury resistance to yeast, Ymr258c was identified as a factor that conferred strong methylmercury resistance when overexpressed in budding yeast. Ymr258c is regarded as one of the F-box proteins, i.e,, component factors of the SkpllCullin!F-box protein (SCF) complex that functions as a ubiquitin ligase in the ubiquitin-protea...

Methylmercury cycling in the Pacific Ocean has garnered significant attention in recent years, especially with regard to rising mercury emissions from Asia. Uncertainty exists concerning whether increases in anthropogenic emissions over time may have caused increased mercury bioaccumulation in the biota. To address this, we measured total mercury and, for a subset of samples, methylmercury (the...

Methylmercury (MeHg) is an organic form of mercury that can damage the developing brains of human fetuses. Women who consume methylmercury during pregnancy [2] can bear children who have neurological issues because methylmercury has toxic effects on the nervous system during embryonic development. During the third week of gestation [3], the human nervous system begins to form in the embryo. Dur...

Methylmercury (MeHg) is an organic form of mercury that can damage the developing brains of human fetuses. Women who consume methylmercury during pregnancy [2] can bear children who have neurological issues because methylmercury has toxic effects on the nervous system during embryonic development. During the third week of gestation [3], the human nervous system begins to form in the embryo. Dur...

Fish is a valuable source of nutrition, and many people would benefit from eating fish regularly. But some people eat a lot of fish, every day or several meals per week, and thus can run a significant risk of overexposure to methylmercury. Current advice regarding methylmercury from fish consumption is targeted to protect the developing brain and nervous system but adverse health effects are in...