Abstract
Male and female Long Evans rats 7, 15, 20, 24, or 56 days old received a single subcutaneous injection of 1 μmol of methyl mercury-203/kg and the whole body retention of radiomercury was determined for up to 139 days thereafter. For rats dosed at 7 or 15 days of age, whole body clearance of mercury was extremely slow until animals reached 17 to 18 days of age. Subsequent excretion was monoexponential in the 7-day-old group and biexponential in the 15-day-old group. For rats dosed at 20, 24, or 56 days of age, onset of excretion was immediate and the pattern of clearance was biexponential. In rats dosed at 56 days of age, the retention of mercury by the average male and average female was significantly different ( p = 0.001). No sexual difference in the estimate of whole body retention of mercury was seen in the other age groups. The presence of an interval of very slow excretion of mercury in young rats and the subsequent slower excretion of mercury in these animals than in rats dosed with methyl mercury later in life suggest that increased hazards of methyl mercury exposure in early life may be related to increased retention of the organomercurial or inorganic Hg.
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