DISTRIBUTION OF MERCURY AMONG BLOOD FRACTIONS AND SERUM PROTEINS

Mercury, as isotopically tagged HgCl2, was injected intravenously into rats at dose levels of 0.12 mg/kg and 1.2 mg/kg. The rats were serially sacrificed over a time period of 3/4 hour to 96 hours after injection, and the partition of the circulating mercury between the erythrocytes and the plasma, and among the serum proteins, was determined. The most interesting observation in this study was that most of the serum-protein-bound mercury was initially associated with the alpha globulins. At the lower dose level, this initial fractional distribution remained about the same throughout the observation period. For the higher dose level, there was a shift with increasing time in the relative concentration of mercury from alpha globulins to albumin. © 1968 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. All rights reserved.