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Mercury Is Taken Up Selectively by Cells Involved in Joint, Bone, and Connective Tissue Disorders

Background: The causes of most arthropathies, osteoarthritis, and connective tissue disorders remain unknown, but exposure to toxic metals could play a part in their pathogenesis. Human exposure to mercury is common, so to determine whether mercury could be affecting joints, bones, and connective ti...

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Autores principales: Pamphlett, Roger, Kum Jew, Stephen
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6659129/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31380381
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fmed.2019.00168
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author Pamphlett, Roger
Kum Jew, Stephen
author_facet Pamphlett, Roger
Kum Jew, Stephen
author_sort Pamphlett, Roger
collection PubMed
description Background: The causes of most arthropathies, osteoarthritis, and connective tissue disorders remain unknown, but exposure to toxic metals could play a part in their pathogenesis. Human exposure to mercury is common, so to determine whether mercury could be affecting joints, bones, and connective tissues we used a histochemical method to determine the cellular uptake of mercury in mice. Whole neonatal mice were examined since this allowed histological assessment of mercury in joint, bone, and connective tissue cells. Materials and Methods: Pregnant mice were exposed to a non-toxic dose of 0.5 mg/m(3) of mercury vapor for 4 h a day on gestational days 14–18. Neonates were sacrificed at postnatal day 1, fixed in formalin, and transverse blocks of the body were processed for paraffin embedding. Seven micrometer sections were stained for inorganic mercury using silver nitrate autometallography, either alone or combined with CD44 immunostaining to detect progenitor cells. Control neonates were not exposed to mercury during gestation. Results: Uptake of mercury was marked in synovial cells, articular chondrocytes, and periosteal and tracheal cartilage cells. Mercury was seen in fibroblasts in the dermis, aorta, esophagus and striated muscle, some of which were CD44-positive progenitor cells, and in the endothelial cells of small blood vessels. Mercury was also present in renal tubules and liver periportal cells. Conclusions: Mercury is taken up selectively by cells that are predominantly affected in rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis. In addition, fibroblasts in several organs often involved in multisystem connective tissue disorders take up mercury. Mercury provokes the autoimmune, inflammatory, genetic, and epigenetic changes that have been described in a range of arthropathies and bone and connective tissue disorders. These findings support the hypothesis that mercury exposure could trigger some of these disorders, particularly in people with a genetic susceptibility to autoimmunity.
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spelling pubmed-66591292019-08-02 Mercury Is Taken Up Selectively by Cells Involved in Joint, Bone, and Connective Tissue Disorders Pamphlett, Roger Kum Jew, Stephen Front Med (Lausanne) Medicine Background: The causes of most arthropathies, osteoarthritis, and connective tissue disorders remain unknown, but exposure to toxic metals could play a part in their pathogenesis. Human exposure to mercury is common, so to determine whether mercury could be affecting joints, bones, and connective tissues we used a histochemical method to determine the cellular uptake of mercury in mice. Whole neonatal mice were examined since this allowed histological assessment of mercury in joint, bone, and connective tissue cells. Materials and Methods: Pregnant mice were exposed to a non-toxic dose of 0.5 mg/m(3) of mercury vapor for 4 h a day on gestational days 14–18. Neonates were sacrificed at postnatal day 1, fixed in formalin, and transverse blocks of the body were processed for paraffin embedding. Seven micrometer sections were stained for inorganic mercury using silver nitrate autometallography, either alone or combined with CD44 immunostaining to detect progenitor cells. Control neonates were not exposed to mercury during gestation. Results: Uptake of mercury was marked in synovial cells, articular chondrocytes, and periosteal and tracheal cartilage cells. Mercury was seen in fibroblasts in the dermis, aorta, esophagus and striated muscle, some of which were CD44-positive progenitor cells, and in the endothelial cells of small blood vessels. Mercury was also present in renal tubules and liver periportal cells. Conclusions: Mercury is taken up selectively by cells that are predominantly affected in rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis. In addition, fibroblasts in several organs often involved in multisystem connective tissue disorders take up mercury. Mercury provokes the autoimmune, inflammatory, genetic, and epigenetic changes that have been described in a range of arthropathies and bone and connective tissue disorders. These findings support the hypothesis that mercury exposure could trigger some of these disorders, particularly in people with a genetic susceptibility to autoimmunity. Frontiers Media S.A. 2019-07-19 /pmc/articles/PMC6659129/ /pubmed/31380381 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fmed.2019.00168 Text en Copyright © 2019 Pamphlett and Kum Jew. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Medicine
Pamphlett, Roger
Kum Jew, Stephen
Mercury Is Taken Up Selectively by Cells Involved in Joint, Bone, and Connective Tissue Disorders
title Mercury Is Taken Up Selectively by Cells Involved in Joint, Bone, and Connective Tissue Disorders
title_full Mercury Is Taken Up Selectively by Cells Involved in Joint, Bone, and Connective Tissue Disorders
title_fullStr Mercury Is Taken Up Selectively by Cells Involved in Joint, Bone, and Connective Tissue Disorders
title_full_unstemmed Mercury Is Taken Up Selectively by Cells Involved in Joint, Bone, and Connective Tissue Disorders
title_short Mercury Is Taken Up Selectively by Cells Involved in Joint, Bone, and Connective Tissue Disorders
title_sort mercury is taken up selectively by cells involved in joint, bone, and connective tissue disorders
topic Medicine
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6659129/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31380381
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fmed.2019.00168
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