Title: Health Effects of Arsenic - Arsenic - University of Maine
Headings: Arsenic
Arsenic
Health Effects of Arsenic

Content: Phosphorus is a very important element in biological tissues. Phosphate is used to build DNA, the molecule that acts as the genetic blueprint for the cell, RNA which is needed to translate the genetic code into functional proteins and it is also used as the energy currency of the cell. That means that phosphate is crucial for life. Since the arsenate looks a lot like the phosphate molecule used in DNA and RNA synthesis, it can sometimes trick the transport proteins for phosphate into importing arsenate from outside the cell. Once inside, arsenate may interfere with normal processing of phosphate or act in other ways to prevent normal cell functions. As (III) or arsenious acid works in a different way. Since it is missing the extra oxygen, it doesn’t look much like phosphate to the cell, but because it is uncharged, it can pass through the lipid membrane to the inside of the cell, or hitch a ride in transport proteins that move small, uncharged molecules around. Once inside, it will combine with sulfur groups on proteins. Sulfur groups are often used to form cross-linkages between protein sections to hold them in a specific 3-D arrangement (proteins are made of long strings of amino acids, but they have to be folded in a specific way to be functional). Preventing these linkages can cause a wide variety of problems in the cell since it can affect many different kinds of proteins.