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Harmful Effects of Inorganic Mercury Exposure on Kidney Cells: Mitochondrial Dynamics Disorder and Excessive Oxidative Stress

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Abstract

Mercury is widely used in industry and has caused global environmental pollution. Inorganic mercury accumulates in the body causes damage to many organs, and the kidney is the most susceptible to the toxic effects of mercury. However, the underlying specific molecular mechanism of renal injury induced by inorganic mercury remains unclear at the cellular level. Therefore, in order to understand its molecular mechanism, we used in vitro method. We established experimental models by treating human embryonic kidney epithelial cell line (HEK-293 T) cells with HgCl2 (0, 1.25, 5, and 20 µmol/L). We found that HgCl2 can lead to a decrease in cell viability and oxidative stress of HEK-293 T, which may be mediated by upregulation mitochondrial fission. In addition, HgCl2 exposure resulted in the mitochondrial disorder of HEK-293 T cells, which was mediated by downregulating the expression of silent information regulator two ortholog 1 (Sirt1)/peroxisome proliferator–activated receptor coactivator-1α (PGC-1α) signaling pathway. In summary, our results suggest that HgCl2 induces HEK-293 T cell toxicity through promoting Sirt1/PGC-1α axis-mediated mitochondrial dynamics disorder and oxidative stress. Sirt1/PGC-1α may be an appealing pharmaceutical target curing HgCl2-induced kidney injury.

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Data Availability

The datasets used or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Abbreviations

HgCl2 :

Mercury dichloride

HEK-293T:

Human embryonic kidney epithelial cell line

PGC-1α:

Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor coactivator-1α

Sirt1:

Silent information regulator two ortholog 1

Mfn1:

Mitofusin 1

Mfn2:

Mitofusin 2

Drp1:

Dynamin-related protein 1

ROS:

Reactive oxygen species

ATP:

Adenosine-triphosphate

qRT-PCR:

Quantitative real-time PCR

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Funding

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31972754).

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Author notes

  1. Biqi Han and Zhanjun Lv contributed to the work equally and should be regarded as co-first authors.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Veterinary Medicine, Northeast Agricultural University, No. 600 Changjiang Road, Harbin, 150030, China

    Biqi Han, Zhanjun Lv, Siyu Li, Bing Han, Qingyue Yang, Xiaoqiao Wang, Pengfei Wu, Jiayi Li, Ning Deng & Zhigang Zhang

  2. Heilongjiang Key Laboratory for Laboratory Animals and Comparative Medicine, 600 Changjiang Road, Harbin, 150030, China

    Biqi Han & Zhigang Zhang

  3. Center for Animal Disease Control and Prevention of Chifeng, Chifeng, 024000, China

    Xuemin Han

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  1. Biqi Han
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Contributions

BQ Han: Conceptualization, Methodology, Data Curation, Writing–original draft. ZJ Lv: Conceptualization, Methodology, Investigation, Formal analysis. XM Han: Conceptualization, Methodology. SY Li: Conceptualization, Methodology. B Han: Conceptualization, Methodology. QY Yang: Methodology, Validation, Formal analysis. XQ Wang: Software, Formal analysis, Methodology, Data curation. PF Wu: Conceptualization, Investigation. JY Li: Methodology. N Deng: Software, Formal analysis. ZG Zhang: Conceptualization, Methodology, Project administration Writing–Review and Editing, Funding acquisition.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Zhigang Zhang.

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Han, B., Lv, Z., Han, X. et al. Harmful Effects of Inorganic Mercury Exposure on Kidney Cells: Mitochondrial Dynamics Disorder and Excessive Oxidative Stress. Biol Trace Elem Res 200, 1591–1597 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12011-021-02766-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12011-021-02766-3

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