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Chemical Detoxification of Organomercurials
Author(s) -
Banerjee Mainak,
Karri Ramesh,
Rawat Kuber Singh,
Muthuvel Karthick,
Pathak Biswarup,
Roy Gouriprasanna
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
angewandte chemie
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1521-3757
pISSN - 0044-8249
DOI - 10.1002/ange.201504413
Subject(s) - chemistry , substituent , detoxification (alternative medicine) , moiety , combinatorial chemistry , stereochemistry , medicine , alternative medicine , pathology
Organomercurials including methylmercury are ubiquitous environmental pollutants and highly toxic to humans. Now it could be shown that N ‐methylimidazole based thiones/selones having an N ‐CH 2 CH 2 OH substituent are remarkably effective in detoxifying various organomercurials to produce less toxic HgE (E=S, Se) nanoparticles. Compounds lacking the N ‐CH 2 CH 2 OH substituent failed to produce HgE nanoparticles upon treatment with organomercurials, suggesting that this moiety plays a crucial role in the detoxification by facilitating the desulfurization and deselenization processes. This novel way of detoxifying organomercurials may lead to the discovery of new compounds to treat patients suffering from methylmercury poisoning.