An association of mercury with selenium in inorganic mercury intoxication.

Energy dispersive X-ray analysis was performed on the renal tubular cells of two patients with inorganic mercury intoxication. Some lysosomes of these cells consisted of unusual matrices of aggregated electron-dense grains which were positive for mercury, selenium and sulphur. Though maps of the specific X-rays of both mercury and selenium coincided exactly with these lysosomes, the molecular ratio of selenium to mercury ranged between zero and 2.9. It is unlikely that the trace element of selenium and exogenous inorganic mercury are deposited in the lysosomes independent of each other, but rather their coexistence in the characteristic lysosomes strongly suggests a compound formed by binding mercury to the SeH residues of selenoprotein.