Do Arsenosugars Pose a Risk to Human Health? The Comparative Toxicities of a Trivalent and Pentavalent Arsenosugar

Andrewes, Paul; DeMarini, David M.; Funasaka, Kunihiro; Wallace, Kathleen; Lai, Vivian; Sun, Hongsui; Cullen, William R.; Kitchin, Kirk T.

doi:10.1021/es035440f

Cited by 105 publications

(71 citation statements)

References 49 publications

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“…Arsenosugar is a broad term for carbohydrate compounds containing arsenic, and 15 different arsenosugars have been identified in the marine environment. 29 Four kinds of arsenosugar were detected in Hijiki. 32 Ingested arsenosugars were quickly and almost completely metabolized to at least 12 arsenic products, some of which were thio-arsenicals in humans.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Ingestion of Hijiki seaweed and risk of arsenic poisoning

Nakajima

Endo

Inoue

et al. 2006

Applied Organom Chemis

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The major route of human exposure to arsenic is via ingestion. Seafoods contain large amounts of various arsenic compounds. Recently, people have been advised not to eat Hijiki seaweed (Hijikia fusiforme) in the UK because of its high content of inorganic arsenic (iAs). To clarify the risks of Hijiki ingestion, a 42-year-old male volunteer ingested 825 µg of iAs compounds contained in eight servings of commercial Hijiki food, after refraining from eating seafood for 3 months. In order to determine the distribution of arsenic species in his urine, arsenic compounds were analyzed using HPLC-ICP-MS. The maximum concentrations of arsenate (AsV), arsenite (AsIII), monomethylarsonic acid (MMA) and dimethylarsinic acid (DMA) were found at 4, 6.5, 13 and 17.5 h after ingestion, respectively. Arsenobetaine concentration was very low, and almost constant throughout the observation period. A total of 28% of ingested arsenic was excreted in urine. The total amounts of AsV, AsIII, MMA and DMA excreted in urine over 50 h were 11.2, 31.8, 40.9 and 104.0 µg, respectively. After eating one serving of Hijiki, arsenic intake and urinary excretion were at levels similar to those in individuals affected by arsenic poisoning. Long-term ingestion of Hijiki might thus have the potential to cause arsenic poisoning.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…and not mutagenic, 29 and arsenosugar metabolites other than DMA exhibit no cytotoxicity. 28 Recently, seaweed has become popular as a 'health food' because it is rich in dietary fiber and low in calories.…”

Section: Speciation Analysis and Environmentmentioning

confidence: 94%

Ingestion of Hijiki seaweed and risk of arsenic poisoning

Nakajima

Endo

Inoue

et al. 2006

Applied Organom Chemis

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“…Here neither the investigated trivalent nor the pentavalent arsenosugar were mutagenic in Salmonella TA104. In human epidermal keratinocytes the arsenosugars showed lower cytotoxicity as compared to arsenite, arsenate, methylarsonite and dimethylarsinite; the trivalent arsenosugar exerted stronger cytotoxic effects than the pentavalent arsenosugar, methylarsonate and dimethylarsinate (Andrewes et al, 2004). In the case of thio-dimethylarsinate the only study available shows thio-dimethylarsinate induced aneuploidy, chromosome structural aberrations and abnormalities of spindle organisation and centrosome integrity starting at µM (≥10 µM) concentrations (Ochi et al, 2008).…”

Section: Organic Arsenicmentioning

confidence: 96%

Scientific Opinion on Arsenic in Food

2009

EFSA Journal

856

220

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The EFSA Panel on Contaminants in the Food Chain (CONTAM Panel) assessed the risks to human health related to the presence of arsenic in food. More than 100,000 occurrence data on arsenic in food were considered with approximately 98 % reported as total arsenic. Making a number of assumptions for the contribution of inorganic arsenic to total arsenic, the inorganic arsenic exposure from food and water across 19 European countries, using lower bound and upper bound concentrations, has been estimated to range from 0.13 to 0.56 µg/kg bodyweight (b.w.) per day for average consumers, and from 0.37 to 1.22 µg/kg b.w. per day for 95 th percentile consumers. Dietary exposure to inorganic arsenic for children under three years of age is in general estimated to be from 2 to 3-fold that of adults. The CONTAM Panel concluded that the provisional tolerable weekly intake (PTWI) of 15 µg/kg b.w. established by the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) is no longer appropriate as data had shown that inorganic arsenic causes cancer of the lung and urinary bladder in addition to skin, and that a range of adverse effects had been reported at exposures lower than those reviewed by the JECFA. The CONTAM Panel modelled the dose-response data from key for providing consumption information and calculating exposure, the partners of the EFSA project on the "Individual food consumption data and exposure" coordinated by Ghent University (Department of Public Health, University Hospital, Ghent University, Belgium), and RIKILT (Institute of Food Safety, Wageningen, The Netherlands) for the accessibility of the exposure assessment tools. 4 Table of contents shows now the fourth level of subheadings. 5 An error in the interpretation of the total number of the population in the study of Rahman et al. (2006a) was discovered (Table 41). The BMDL was recalculated and as a consequence it was not considered a potential reference point. The text in the opinion, Table 43 and Appendix were revised accordingly. In addition, the header of the "total number of cases" was replaced by "total number of individuals" in Tables 40-42 and the erroneous units were corrected to µg/L in the text below SUMMARYArsenic is a metalloid that occurs in different inorganic and organic forms, which are found in the environment both from natural occurrence and from anthropogenic activity. The inorganic forms of arsenic are more toxic as compared to the organic arsenic but so far most of the occurrence data in food collected in the framework of official food control are still reported as total arsenic without differentiating the various arsenic species. The need for speciation data is evident because several investigations have shown that especially in seafood most of the arsenic is present in organic forms that are less toxic. Consequently, a risk assessment not taking into account the different species but considering total arsenic as being present exclusively as inorganic arsenic would lead to a considerable overestimation of the health risk rel...

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“…There have been only limited studies of arsenosugar toxicity. In mammalian cells, a synthesized arsenosugar was not cytotoxic at micromolar levels, but a more recent study compared the in vitro toxicity of two synthetic arsenosugars, one trivalent and the other pentavalent [36]. The trivalent sugar was positive for cytotoxicity and DNA nicking at concentrations of about 500 -600 lM, but inactive for Salmonella mutagenicity.…”

Section: Toxicitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Dietary exposure to total and toxic arsenic in Belgium: Importance of arsenic speciation in North Sea fish

Baeyens¹,

Gao²,

Galan³

et al. 2009

Molecular Nutrition Food Res

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Total and toxic (sum of As(III), As(V), monomethylarsenic (MMA), and dimethylarsenic (DMA)) As concentrations were assessed in 19 respectively 4 different fish and shellfish species from the North Sea. Following results were obtained: (i) for fish an average total As concentration of 12.8 microg/g ww and a P90 value of 30.6 microg/g ww; (ii) for shellfish an average total As concentration of 21.6 microg/g ww and a P90 value of 40.0 microg/g ww; (iii) for fish an average toxic As concentration of 0.132 microg/g ww and a P90 value of 0.232 microg/g ww; (iv) for shellfish an average toxic As concentration of 0.198 microg/g ww and a P90 value of 0.263 microg/g ww. For the Belgian consumer the average daily intake of total arsenic from fish, shellfish, fruit, and soft drinks (the main food carriers of As in Belgium) amounts to 285 microg/day with more than 95% coming from fish and shellfish, while for a high level consumer it amounts to 649 microg/day, more than twice the average value. Using the same daily consumption pattern for the selected food products as for total As, we find that the average daily intake of toxic As amounts to 5.8 microg/day, with a 50% contribution of fish and shellfish and the high level intake to 9.5 microg/day. When considering the FOA/WHO Expert Committee's recommendation for inorganic As intake of 2 microg/kg bw/day or 140 microg/day for a 70 kg person, the toxic dose in Belgium is thus an order of magnitude lower.

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Do Arsenosugars Pose a Risk to Human Health? The Comparative Toxicities of a Trivalent and Pentavalent Arsenosugar

Cited by 105 publications

References 49 publications

Ingestion of Hijiki seaweed and risk of arsenic poisoning

Ingestion of Hijiki seaweed and risk of arsenic poisoning

Scientific Opinion on Arsenic in Food

Dietary exposure to total and toxic arsenic in Belgium: Importance of arsenic speciation in North Sea fish

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