Total arsenic and speciation analysis of saliva and urine samples from individuals living in a chronic arsenicosis area in China

Environmental Health and Preventive Medicine, May 2017

Background It is generally acknowledged that the determination of harmful chemical compounds excreted into saliva is useful for assessing their exposure levels. The aim of the present study was to compare the total arsenic and its species in saliva and urine samples collected from the people residing in an arsenic-contaminated area of China and to further verify the feasibility of using salivary arsenic as a new biomarker of arsenic exposure. Methods Total arsenic and speciation analyses in urine and saliva samples among 70 residents exposed to arsenic from drinking water in Shanxi, China were carried out by high-performance liquid chromatography-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (HPLC-ICP/MS). Results The result showed that, total arsenic concentration in saliva was relatively lower than in urine samples, but it existed a strong positive correlation with total urinary arsenic, drinking water arsenic and different skin lesions. For arsenic metabolism analyses, AsIII, AsV, MMA, and DMA were detected in all of the urine samples with the dominating species of DMA (73.2%). Different with urinary arsenic species, most arsenic species in saliva were not methylated. The major species in saliva was iAs (AsIII + AsV, 76.18%), followed by DMA (13.08%) and MMA (9.13%). And the primary methylation index (PMI), second methylation index (SMI) and proportion of the four different species (AsIII, AsV, MMA, and DMA) in saliva showed no significant positive relationship with that of in urine. Conclusions These findings indicated saliva may be used as a useful tool for biological monitoring of total arsenic exposure in the crowd rather than an efficient tool for assessing arsenic metabolism in human body after exposed to arsenic.

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Total arsenic and speciation analysis of saliva and urine samples from individuals living in a chronic arsenicosis area in China

Wang et al. Environmental Health and Preventive Medicine Total arsenic and speciation analysis of saliva and urine samples from individuals living in a chronic arsenicosis area in China Dapeng Wang 0 Yasuyo Shimoda Sanxiang Wang Zhenghui Wang Jian Liu 0 Xing Liu 0 Huanyu Jin 0 Fenfang Gao 0 Jian Tong 0 Kenzo Yamanaka Jie Zhang 0 Yan An 0 0 Department of Toxicology, School of Public Health, Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Preventive and Translational Medicine for Geriatric Diseases, Medical College of Soochow University , Suzhou, Jiangsu 215123 , People's Republic of China Background: It is generally acknowledged that the determination of harmful chemical compounds excreted into saliva is useful for assessing their exposure levels. The aim of the present study was to compare the total arsenic and its species in saliva and urine samples collected from the people residing in an arsenic-contaminated area of China and to further verify the feasibility of using salivary arsenic as a new biomarker of arsenic exposure. Methods: Total arsenic and speciation analyses in urine and saliva samples among 70 residents exposed to arsenic from drinking water in Shanxi, China were carried out by high-performance liquid chromatography-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (HPLC-ICP/MS). Results: The result showed that, total arsenic concentration in saliva was relatively lower than in urine samples, but it existed a strong positive correlation with total urinary arsenic, drinking water arsenic and different skin lesions. For arsenic metabolism analyses, AsIII, AsV, MMA, and DMA were detected in all of the urine samples with the dominating species of DMA (73.2%). Different with urinary arsenic species, most arsenic species in saliva were not methylated. The major species in saliva was iAs (AsIII + AsV, 76.18%), followed by DMA (13.08%) and MMA (9.13%). And the primary methylation index (PMI), second methylation index (SMI) and proportion of the four different species (AsIII, AsV, MMA, and DMA) in saliva showed no significant positive relationship with that of in urine. Conclusions: These findings indicated saliva may be used as a useful tool for biological monitoring of total arsenic exposure in the crowd rather than an efficient tool for assessing arsenic metabolism in human body after exposed to arsenic. Arsenic speciation; Saliva; Urine; Drinking water; Biomarker - Background Arsenic is a ubiquitous element in the earth’s crust [1] and is widely distributed in water, air, soil, and food in both inorganic and organic forms [2]. Inorganic arsenic (arsenate and/or arsenite) has long been recognized as human carcinogens by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) [3]. Long-term exposure to inorganic arsenic can cause numerous human health effects, including several types of cancers [3–5], cardiovascular disease, and diabetes [6, 7]. In addition, arsenicosis is a serious and widespread global public health problem [8] with more than 200 million people at risk of toxic arsenic exposure from ground water and food contamination [9]. Considerable progress has been made in recent years to address arsenic toxicity, including both genetic and epigenetic alteration [10, 11]. In spite of these efforts, the exact molecular and cellular mechanism involved in arsenic toxicity are rather unrevealed given that the complicated metabolism of arsenic in the human body, and no effective treatment for arsenicosis exists [3]. Hence, timely screening for arsenic exposure and accessing arsenic metabolism is particularly vital in preventing arsenic poisoning. Traditionally, samples for screening arsenic exposure mainly include blood, urine, hair, and nails [12, 13]. More recently, salivary analyses has became a useful tool for © The Author(s). 2017 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. disease diagnosis because of its non-invasive collection method and easy storage [14]. Additionally, in the area of biological monitoring, previous studies on the use of saliva have focused on lead, cadmium, mercury, and herbicide concentrations in humans or animals [15–19]. For arsenic exposure, there have been limited and paradoxical studies that have detected arsenic concentration in saliva. Yuan et al., [20] first analyzed arsenic and its species in human saliva from an arsenic-contaminated area and found that salivary arsenic could be a potential biomarker of arsenic exposure. Subsequently, other studies (...truncated)


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Dapeng Wang, Yasuyo Shimoda, Sanxiang Wang, Zhenghui Wang, Jian Liu, Xing Liu, Huanyu Jin, Fenfang Gao, Jian Tong, Kenzo Yamanaka, Jie Zhang, Yan An. Total arsenic and speciation analysis of saliva and urine samples from individuals living in a chronic arsenicosis area in China, Environmental Health and Preventive Medicine, 2017, pp. 45, Volume 22, Issue 1, DOI: 10.1186/s12199-017-0652-5