New research from UC San Diego’s Scripps Oceanography Institute and UCLA points toward a potential breakthrough to offset the effects of toxic forms of mercury in seafood.
Scientists found that the engineered microbe Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron, a type of “good” gut bacteria, was able to eliminate methylmercury in the digestive tract. Results showed it lowered levels of the toxin in the feces and tissue of mice in just 12 hours.
Results of the study were released Thursday in the journal Cell Host and Microbe.
If the microbe is developed further to serve as detoxification therapy for people, it could reduce risks of neurological impairments among children exposed to high levels of dietary methylmercury in the womb, researchers said.
Methylmercury results from a toxic transformation that occurs to mercury in the ocean. This form of mercury, when absorbed into the tissue, increases in its concentration as it travels through the food chain.
Those who primarily eat food containing high mercury concentrations are at higher risk.
While health officials have issued advisories, especially to pregnant women, to avoid some seafood, the study’s co-senior author, Amina Schartup, a marine biogeochemist at Scripps Oceanography, said that this isn’t an option for the many women around the world. Often, they rely on fish as their sole source of protein.
“Despite global efforts to reduce mercury emissions and its accumulation in fish, methylmercury levels in seafood are not expected to decline anytime soon. Fish remains a major and culturally important part of the diet for many people around the world and we hope it continues to be,” Schartup said.
Mercury pollutes the ocean from several sources, the largest of which are human activities like coal burning, artisanal gold mining and consumer product waste.
Schartup said she spent years working on mercury pollution in the ocean and in seafood before she “began to feel frustrated diagnosing problems without offering any solutions.”
That prompted her to apply to the Scialog Microbiome, Neurobiology and Disease initiative.
“I was the only oceanographer in the cohort, and I received a crash course in the gut-brain axis,” she said.
Schartup linked with Elaine Hsiao, her co-senior author, in 2021 after she joined a Scialog research program through the Research Corporation for Science Advancement.
Hsiao, associate professor and director of the UCLA Goodman-Luskin Microbiome Center, joined her in pitching the project. They received funding from the RCSA to study the ability of microbiomes to combat mercury toxicity in humans.
“We envision the possibility that people could take a probiotic to offset the risk of consuming too much methylmercury, especially when pregnant,” Hsiao said.
Though Hsiao and Scharup continue to explore the bacterium and its potential for humans, the project is on unstable terrain. Funding is at risk with proposed budget cuts looming over the National Institutes of Health.
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