Challenge for Detoxification of Arsenic by Methylated Metal Complex

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Inorganic arsenic has caused serious chronic diseases throughenvironmental pollution. However, some methylated arsenic compounds, especiallytrimethylarsine oxide(TMAO) and arsenobatetaine(AB) have much lower toxicities thanarsenic trioxide(As2O3). The acute toxicity of AB, as determined from animal experiments, is approximately one three-hundredth of that of arsenic trioxide. Meanwhile, in marineecosystems, inorganic arsenicals are biologically methylated through the food chain, whichinvolves a methyltransferase and a reductase. An interesting application of the methyltransfer reaction with vitamin B_<12> to the detoxification system for inorganic arsenic hasbeen succeeded. This is a new and selective detoxification method for inorganic arsenic, which is the biomimetic methylation of arsenic trioxide(As2O3) to give trimethylarsineoxide(TMAO).