HEALTH HAZARDS OF METHYLMERCURY

总体目标是更清楚地定义人类健康风险来自 产前暴露于甲基汞化合物(甲基汞)。要做到这一点 目的：我们计划测量人体内的剂量-反应关系。 暴露于甲基汞的人群，并进行补充 为更准确地描述产前和早期特征而进行的调查 甲基汞的出生后身体负担，包括向目标的转运 器官，大脑。 人体研究的目的是检验这一假说，该假说是在我们的 先前对伊拉克人群中产前暴露的研究，微妙的 产前暴露的儿童的心理和行为变化可能是 使用剂量-剂量与母亲孕期暴露的数量相关 应对模式。 头发中的甲基汞浓度已被用作 剂量。我们计划直接测试头发水平表明 目标组织，即大脑中的甲基汞水平，通过使用人类 尸检数据。 我们计划研究甲基汞从血液到大脑的运输机制 跨越血脑屏障，更好地了解限制 发汞作为靶区剂量生物监测仪的准确性 组织。我们有初步证据表明甲基汞穿过血脑 中性氨基酸载体上的屏障作为与硫醇的络合物- 含有半胱氨酸的氨基酸。

The overall objective is to more clearly define human health risks from prenatal exposure to methylmercury compounds (MeHg). To achieve this objective, we plan to measure dose-response relationships in human populations exposed to methylmercury and to conduct complementary investigations to characterize more precisely both prenatal and early postnatal body burdens of methylmercury including transport to the target organ, the brain. The aim of the human studies is to test the hypothesis, developed in our previous study of prenatal exposures in the Iraq population, the subtle psychological and behavioral changes in prenatally exposed children can be quantitatively related to the mothers exposure during pregnancy using dose- response models. MeHg concentration in head hair has been used as the best indicator of the dose. We plan to directly test the assumption that hair levels indicate levels of methylmercury in the target tissue, the brain, by use of human autopsy data. We plan to examine the mechanisms of transport of MeHg from blood to brain across the blood-brain barrier to better understand the factors that limit the accuracy of hair mercury as a biological monitor of dose to the target tissue. We have preliminary evidence that MeHg crosses the blood-brain barrier on the neutral amino acid carrier as a complex with the thiol- containing amino acid, cysteine.