The biochemistry of toxic elements
- 1 November 1978
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Cambridge University Press (CUP) in Quarterly Reviews of Biophysics
- Vol. 11 (4) , 467-479
- https://doi.org/10.1017/s0033583500005643
Abstract
In 1968 it was discovered that mercury could be biomethylated to give methylmercury as the major product (Wood, Kennedy & Rosen, 1968; Jensen & Jernelöv, 1969). This discovery has proved to be important in two respects: (a) it provided us with the recognition that biological systems are capable of synthesizing very toxic organometallic compounds from relatively innocuous inorganic precursors, and (b) it opened the door to the study of organometallic compounds produced by biological mechanisms in the aqueous environment.Keywords
This publication has 1 reference indexed in Scilit:
- Recent Studies on Biomethylation and Demethylation of Toxic ElementsEnvironmental Health Perspectives, 1977