What is it about?
Humans are exposed to phenylmercuric acetate (PMA) as this compound has bactericidal and antifungal activity and it is therefore used in eye drops and lens cleaning fluids. Some people develop 'mercurialentis' which is associated with a discoloration of the cornea of the lens. The biochemical degradation of PMA at near physiological conditions is not understood at a biomolecular level.
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Why is it important?
We established the biochemical mechanism by which PMA is degraded by L-cysteine, which is an amino acid that is present in hepatocytes. This mechanism of degradation is also relevant to the effective inhibition of Sars-CoV-2 by PMA as the main protease of this virus contains about 4% by weight of cysteine residues. It is therefore likely that the biodegradation mechanism that we have observed also pertains to Sars-CoV-2.
Perspectives
The developed approach to employ HPLC to observe the degradation of PMA therefore emerges as a useful tool to probe bioinorganic solution processes that may be extended to other organometallic compounds
Dr Juergen Gailer
University of Calgary
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: RP-HPLC reveals the L-cysteine induced degradation of phenylmercuric acetate, Journal of Inorganic Biochemistry, May 2025, Elsevier,
DOI: 10.1016/j.jinorgbio.2025.112851.
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