Arsenic Compounds in Terrestrial Organisms II: Arsenocholine in the Mushroom Amanita muscaria

✍ Scribed by Doris Kuehnelt; Walter Goessler; Kurt J. Irgolic

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1997
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 201 KB
• Volume: 11
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0268-2605
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1099-0739(199706)11:6<459::aid-aoc583>3.0.co;2-o

✦ Synopsis

Arsenic compounds were identified and quantified in the mushroom Amanita muscaria, collected close to a facility that had roasted arsenic ores. The powdered dried mushrooms were extracted with methanol/water (9:1), the extracts were concentrated and the concentrates were dissolved in water. The resulting solutions were chromatographed on anionexchange, cation-exchange and reversedphase columns. Arsenic was detected on-line with an ICP-MS detector equipped with a hydraulic high-pressure nebulizer. Arsenite, arsenate, dimethylarsinic acid and the tetramethylarsonium cation were minor arsenic compounds ( ~2% each of the total 22 mg kg Ϫ 1 dry mass), and arsenobetaine, arsenocholine ( ~15% each) and several unidentified arsenic compounds ( ~60%) were the major arsenic compounds in Amanita muscaria. The presence of arsenocholine (detected for the first time in a terrestrial sample) was ascertained by matching retention times in the anion-exchange, cationexchange and reversed-phase chromatograms with the retention time of synthetic arsenocholine bromide and chromatographing extracts spiked with arsenocholine bromide.