Journal
ANALYTICA CHIMICA ACTA
Volume 583, Issue 1, Pages 84-91Publisher
ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV
DOI: 10.1016/j.aca.2006.09.040
Keywords
mercury-containing proteins; stable isotopic tracer; size-exclusion chromatography; reverse isotope dilution ICP-MS
Categories
Ask authors/readers for more resources
In order to investigate trace mercury-containing proteins in maternal rat and their offspring, a method of enriched stable isotopic tracer (Hg-196 and Hg-198) combined with size-exclusion chromatography (SEC) coupled to inductively coupled plasma-isotope dilution mass spectrometry (ICP-IDMS) was developed. Prior to the analysis, Hg-196- and Hg-198-enriched methylmercury was administrated to the pregnant rats. Then the mercury-containing proteins in serum and brain cytosol of the dam and pup rats were separated by size-exclusion columns and the mercury was detected by ICP-MS. The ICP-MS spectrogram of the tracing samples showed significantly elevated Hg-196 and Hg-198 isotopic signals compared with the natural ones, indicating that the detection sensitivity could be increased by the tracer method. The contents of mercury in chromatographic fractions of the dam and pup rat brain cytosol were quantitatively estimated by post-column reverse ID-ICP-MS. The quantitative speciation differences of mercury in brain cytosol between the dam and pup rats were observed, indicating that such studies could be useful for toxicological estimation. Additionally, the isotopic ratio measurement of Hg-198/Hg-202 in the tracing samples could be used to identify the artifact mercury species caused in the analytical procedure. The study demonstrates that the tracer method combined with high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC)-ICP-IDMS could provide reliably qualitative and quantitative information on mercury-containing proteins in organisms. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available