Distribution of inorganic arsenic and methylated arsenic in marine organisms

✍ Scribed by Toshikazu Kaise; Ken'Ichi Hanaoka; Shoji Tagawa; Teruhisa Hirayama; Shozo Fukui

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1988
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 448 KB
• Volume: 2
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0268-2605
• DOI: 10.1002/aoc.590020607

✦ Synopsis

Inorganic arsenic and methylated arsenic compounds in 60 specimens of marine organisms were investigated by hydride generation derivatization and cold-trap gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC MS). Chloroform-methanol extracts from seaweeds, shellfish, fish, crustaceans and other marine organisms were separated into water-soluble and lipid-soluble fractions. The arsenic compounds in each fraction were identified and analysed as arsine, methylarsine, dimethylarsine and trimethylarsine.

Trimethylarsenic compounds were distributed mainly in the water-soluble fraction of muscle of carnivorous gastropods, crustaceans and fish. The amounts of dimethylated arsenic compounds were found to be larger than that of trimethylated arsenic in the lipid-soluble fraction of fish viscera. Dimethylated arsenic compounds were distributed in the water-soluble fraction of Phaeophyceae.