ASSESSMENT OF A POSSIBLE GENOTOXIC ENVIRONMENTAL RISK IN SHEEP BRED ON GROUNDS WITH STRONGLY ELEVATED CONTENTS OF MERCURY, ARSENIC AND ANTIMONY

A part of Northern Palatinate country (Germany) was formerly influence d by mercury mining. Today, in many cases agricultural and housing are as are placed onto or near to former dump grounds of rubble. In the so il of these areas the concentration of mercury, arsenic and antimony w as found ranging from basic natural contents up to strongly elevated l evels. In a biomonitoring project, sheep bred on grounds contaminated with mercury (range 1-435 mg Hg/kg dry matter), arsenic (range 17-147 mg As/kg dry matter) and antimony (range 2-15 mg Sb/kg dry matter) wer e taken as example on the uptake of these elements from the environmen t and for possible effects of this exposure. Significantly elevated me rcury levels were found in wool of one collective of exposed sheep (0. 107 mg/kg mean vs. 0.048 mg/kg mean, p < 0.001, U-test). Surprisingly, the arsenic content of wool taken from sheep bred in the urban refere ntial area was approx. 10 times higher than that of the sheep bred on the grounds contaminated with arsenic (0.57 mg/kg mean vs. 0.051 mg/kg mean, p < 0.001, U-test). In general, element concentrations in the e xamined blood samples were low and the differences between the collect ives were small: mercury was found in concentrations ranging from 0.9 mu g/l up to 2.0 mu g/l (means), arsenic and antimony were generally f ound in concentrations below 1 mu g/l. Neither in the alkaline elution technique nor in the sister chromatid exchange (SCE) analysis signifi cant increases in the rate of DNA-damaging effects between the differe nt sheep collectives were detected. This indicates that the transfer r ate of genotoxic compounds of mercury, arsenic or antimony from the en vironment is too low to register effects with AFE and SCE although the soil was highly contaminated.