Arsinothioyl-sugars produced by in vitro incubation of seaweed extract with liver cytosol analysed by HPLC coupled simultaneously to ES-MS and ICP-MS

It has been shown, that in vitro incubation of Laminaria digitata extract (containing mainly As-sugar 1 (glycerol-arsenoribose) and As-sugar 3 (sulfonate-arsenoribose)) with liver cytosol, produced the same two arsenicals, as when L. digitata extract was treated with H2S. By parallel use of HPLC-ICP-MS and HPLC-ES-MS the compounds displayed mainly m/z 345 and m/z 409. A pure As-sugar 1 standard was obtained, and a standard of arsinothioyl-sugar 1 (m/z 345) was produced, by purging a solution of As-sugar 1 with gaseous H2S. The identity of arsinothioyl-sugar 1 was characterised by ES-MS, 1D and 2D NMR. Arsinothioyl-sugar 1 showed the same chromatographic behaviour and MS characteristics as one of the two arsenic-containing compounds (m/z 345) produced by incubation of L. digitata extracts with liver cytosol, and as the product of the incubation of As-sugar 1 with liver cytosol (HPLC-ICP-MS, HPLC-ES-MS). Assuming that As-sugar 3 reacts in a similar way to As-sugar 1 with H2S, it is most likely that the second unknown (m/z 409) is arsinothioyl-sugar 3. The degradation of As-sugar 1 in acidic solution (100 mM HCl) was followed by 1H-NMR, and the relative slow degradation (t1/2 = 17 h) suggests that arsenosugars are taken up from the stomach in their original chemical form, hence the study of arsenosugar incubation in tissue is highly relevant. The arsinothioyls are a new group of organoarsenicals, which have only recently been identified in nature. Here, arsinothioyl sugars are detected for the first time. The in vitro formation of arsinothioyl-sugars in liver cytosol suggests that arsinothioyls may be of large biochemical and toxicological importance.