10 



20 



30 40 



SELENIUM mg/kg (ppm) 



50 



60 



70 



Figure 6. — Relationship between total mercury and selenium in kidney of 46 blue marlin from the Hawaiian 



Islands. 



in organ distribution of mercury. The kidneys and 

 intestines lost mercury while the testes gained 

 mercury relative to the controls. In addition, mer- 

 cury in the macromolecular fraction of blood 

 plasma increased after addition of selenite. Burk 

 etal. ( 1974) found a similar increase of mercury in 

 plasma protein when mercuric chloride was ad- 

 ministered simultaneously with selenite. This 

 was not the case when mercuric chloride or sele- 

 nite was injected alone. Their experiments using 

 dialysis of rat plasma protein indicated that 

 selenium and mercury are bound in a 1:1 molar 



ratio to a single protein, with selenium attached 

 to the protein through a sulfhydryl group and 

 mercury attached to the selenium. They also ob- 

 served a time lag after injection of selenite before 

 detection of protein binding during which the 

 selenite was apparently metabolized to another 

 form. Lunde (1970) has found selenium to be as- 

 sociated also with proteins in marine organisms. 

 The molar ratio of average total mercury to av- 

 erage selenium in muscle is 0.62. Subtracting the 

 methyl mercury to obtain inorganic mercury 

 (Schultz and Crear 1976), the ratio reduces to 0.54. 



877 



