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Metallothioneins and detoxification. Is the use of detoxication protein for mts a language abuse?

  • Part III Physiological and Toxicological Aspects of Metals
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Abstract

Our own results and a literature review led us to reconsider the detoxifying function of MTs in living organisms. Despite the fact that many authors have observed a synthesis or a level increase of MTs as a response to toxic metal uptake, arguments exist which tend us to give to MTs a strict zinc homeostasic function. Many experiments have been conducted using non-natural routes of exposure and/or concentrations far from those observed even in heavily polluted environments. Zinc is the only metal for which a primary induction has been established. Correlations between zinc and MTs levels are frequently observed, specially at the early stages of life. Our knowledge about metallic cluster structure and our experimental results about inter-metallic competition for binding-sites on the apoprotein, support the idea of substitution processes instead of de novo synthesis in most cases of contamination, leading frequently to acclimation.

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  1. Service d'Ecotoxicologie, URA CNRS 1356, Faculté de Pharmacie, Université de Nantes, 1 rue Gaston Veil, 44035, Nantes Cedex, France

    Richard P. Cosson, Claude Amiard-Triquet & Jean-Claude Amiard

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  1. Richard P. Cosson
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Cosson, R.P., Amiard-Triquet, C. & Amiard, JC. Metallothioneins and detoxification. Is the use of detoxication protein for mts a language abuse?. Water Air Soil Pollut 57, 555–567 (1991). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00282919

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