The Toxicity of Mercury and Its Chemical Compounds: Molecular Mechanisms and Environmental and Human Health Implications: A Comprehensive Review

• Published in: ACS OMEGA
• Main Authors: Wu, Yuan-Seng; Osman, Ahmed I.; Hosny, Mohamed; Elgarahy, Ahmed M.; Eltaweil, Abdelazeem S.; Rooney, David W.; Chen, Zhonghao; Rahim, Nur Syafiqah; Sekar, Mahendran; Gopinath, Subash C. B.; Mat Rani, Nur Najihah Izzati; Batumalaie, Kalaivani; Yap, Pow-Seng
• Format: Review
• Language: English
• Published: AMER CHEMICAL SOC 2024
• Subjects: Chemistry
• Online Access: https://www-webofscience-com.uitm.idm.oclc.org/wos/woscc/full-record/WOS:001158430300001

Mercury is a type of hazardous and toxic pollutant that can result in detrimental effects on the environment and human health. This review is aimed at discussing the state-of-the-art progress on the recent developments on the toxicity of mercury and its chemical compounds. More than 210 recent works of literature are covered in this review. It first delineates the types (covering elemental mercury, inorganic mercury compounds, organic mercury compounds), structures, and sources of mercury. It then discusses the pharmacokinetic profile of mercury, molecular mechanisms of mercury toxicity, and clinical manifestation of acute and chronic mercury toxicity to public health. It also elucidates the mercury toxicity to the environment and human health in detail, covering ecotoxicity, neurotoxicity diseases, neurological diseases, genotoxicity and gene regulation, immunogenicity, pregnancy and reproductive system damage, cancer promotion, cardiotoxicity, pulmonary diseases, and renal disease. In order to mitigate the adverse effects of mercury, strategies to overcome mercury toxicity are recommended. Finally, some future perspectives are provided in order to advance this field of research in the future.