title: In vitro study of thimerosal reactions in human whole blood and plasma surrogate samples.
abstract: Because of its bactericidal and fungicidal properties, thimerosal is used as a preservative in drugs and vaccines and is thus deliberately injected into the human body. In aqueous environment, it decomposes into thiosalicylic acid and the ethylmercury cation. This organomercury fragment is a potent neurotoxin and is suspected to have similar toxicity and bioavailability like the methylmercury cation. In this work, human whole blood and physiological simulation solutions were incubated with thimerosal to investigate its behaviour and binding partners in the blood stream. Inductively coupled plasma with optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES) was used for total mercury determination in different blood fractions, while liquid chromatography (LC) coupled to electrospray ionisation time-of-flight (ESI-TOF) and inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) provided information on the individual mercury species in plasma surrogate samples. Analogous behaviour of methylmercury and ethylmercury species in human blood was shown and an ethylmercury-glutathione adduct was identified.
authors.affiliation: University of Münster, Institute of Inorganic and Analytical Chemistry, Corrensstr. 30, Münster 48149, Germany.
authors.forename: Stefan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Trümpler
authors.affiliation: University of Münster, Institute of Inorganic and Analytical Chemistry, Corrensstr. 30, Münster 48149, Germany; Federal Institute of Hydrology, Department G2 - Aquatic Chemistry, Am Mainzer Tor 1, 56068 Koblenz, Germany.
authors.forename: Björn
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Meermann
authors.affiliation: University of Münster, Institute of Inorganic and Analytical Chemistry, Corrensstr. 30, Münster 48149, Germany.
authors.forename: Sascha
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Nowak
authors.affiliation: University of Münster, Institute of Inorganic and Analytical Chemistry, Corrensstr. 30, Münster 48149, Germany.
authors.forename: Wolfgang
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Buscher
authors.affiliation: University of Münster, Institute of Inorganic and Analytical Chemistry, Corrensstr. 30, Münster 48149, Germany.
authors.forename: Uwe
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Karst
authors.affiliation: University of Münster, Institute of Inorganic and Analytical Chemistry, Corrensstr. 30, Münster 48149, Germany; European Virtual Institute for Speciation Analysis, Mendelstr. 11, Münster 48149, Germany. Electronic address: michael.sperling@uni-muenster.de.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Sperling
mesh_terms: D002853:Chromatography, Liquid; D003545:Cysteine / Q000097:blood; D005978:Glutathione / Q000097:blood; D006801:Humans; D066298:In Vitro Techniques / Q000379:methods*; D010949:Plasma / Q000378:metabolism*; D021241:Spectrometry, Mass, Electrospray Ionization; D013054:Spectrophotometry, Atomic; D013849:Thimerosal / Q000097:blood*
chemical_list: D013849:Thimerosal; D005978:Glutathione; D003545:Cysteine
keywords: Ethylmercury; Human w; Hyphenated; Speciation; Thimerosal; analysis; hole b; lood; techniques