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Detection of rare species of volatile organic selenium metabolites in male golden hamster urine

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Abstract

Selenium has been considered as an essential trace element in mammals and its intake comes mainly from food. Mammals can metabolize both inorganic and organic species, and urinary excretion is the primary elimination route of selenium. Selenosugars and trimethylselenonium ion have been identified as major urinary metabolites. Other metabolites have been reported, but they were detected in some studies and not in others. Still, a large portion of the ingested selenium eliminated from the body is unknown. Volatile selenium species may account for a certain portion of the unknown species since they can easily be lost during sample analyses. While we analyzed male golden hamster urine in search of potential volatile pheromone(s), four volatile selenium compounds were detected. They were dimethyl selenenylsulfide, dimethyl diselenide, dimethyl bis(thio)selenide, and dimethyl selenodisulfide. When the urine samples were aged and dried for 48 h, dimethyl selenodisulfide tended to increase, while others decreased. The increase might be due to the formation of dimethyl selenodisulfide via reaction of dimethyl diselenide and dimethyl trisulfide whose concentration increased as urine aged. To our knowledge, dimethyl bis(thio)selenide and dimethyl selenodisulfide have never been demonstrated in urine. It remains to be determined whether these species are common metabolites in other animals or hamster-specific.

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Acknowledgments

This work was funded, in part, by a grant from the Austrian Science Fund (FWF: P26246-B16) to Teresa G. Valencak. We are grateful to Ms. Renate Hengsberger for obtaining some of the references.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research Institute of Wildlife Ecology, Department of Integrative Biology and Evolution, University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna, Savoyenstraße 1, 1160, Vienna, Austria

    Jae Kwak, Sarah A. Ohrnberger & Teresa G. Valencak

  2. UES Inc., Air Force Research Laboratory, 711th Human Performance Wing, Wright-Patterson AFB, Dayton, OH, 45432-1894, USA

    Jae Kwak

  3. Institute of Physiology, Pathophysiology and Biophysics, Department of Biomedical Sciences, University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna, Veterinärplatz 1, 1210, Vienna, Austria

    Sarah A. Ohrnberger & Teresa G. Valencak

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  1. Jae Kwak
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Correspondence to Jae Kwak.

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The experimental procedures were in accordance with ethical standards and guidelines on both care and use of experimental animals of the Ethical and Animal Welfare Commission of the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna (Permit No. ETK-13/07/2015).

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Kwak, J., Ohrnberger, S.A. & Valencak, T.G. Detection of rare species of volatile organic selenium metabolites in male golden hamster urine. Anal Bioanal Chem 408, 4927–4934 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-016-9579-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-016-9579-8

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