Study On The Distribution,Toxicity And Interaction Between Selenium And Mercury In Animals

The paper made acute toxicity test about selenium, mercury and their joint substance with Wistar rats, and then sub-chronic toxicity test was made based on the results. In the sub-chronic toxicity tests, 140 rats were divided into seven groups (10 male and 10 female per group) randomly. After being poisoned intragastrically for three months, all the rats were executed and dissected. Blood, livers, kidneys, brains, muscles, glands, hearts, spleens, lungs, stomachs, intestines, bones and testises of rats were got to be studied. The results showed that the interaction between selenium and mercury in rats mostly is the antagonism on the both acute toxicity tests and sub-chronic ones. Liver, kidney, gland, heart, spleen, lungs, stomach and testis of rats are the target organs of mercury, selenium and their joint poison. And liver, kidney and spleen are three most important target organs. There is a high positive correlation between mercury and selenium in the livers, but a low negative correlation in kidney.The paper firstly reported a high positive correlation between the content of mercury and selenium. This correlation exists not only between different organs but also in the same organ. The mol-ratio of selenium and mercury is about 1:1 in liver, gland, spleen, stomach and lungs when selenium and mercury were administered simultaneously with 2:1 mol-ratio, especially in stomach. And female rats have the higher probability of 1:1 mol-ratio accumulation ofselenium and mercury than male ones.It was also showed that organ category, sex, dose and content of mercury have affect on the interaction between selenium and mercury. Collectively, the female rats are more sensitive to the antagonism of selenium and mercury than the male ones. Among the joint dose experiments, the antagonism of selenium and mercury is the most evident in the rats with 2:1 mol-ratio of selenium and mercury but the least in the rats with 1:2 mol-ratio of selenium and mercury. The results also showed that there are two essential conditions for good antagonistic effect of selenium and mercury and 1:1 mol-ratio relationship of selenium and mercury in the most organs (liver, gland, spleen, stomach and lungs). One is that the content of mercury is more than 100nmol/g, and another is the 2:1 dose ratio of selenium and mercury.