Effect of methylmercury body burden on kidney following unilateral nephrectomy

The model of renal enlargement after unilateral nephrectomy is chosen to study the effect of methylmercury (MeHg) burden on organ growth. The results show that MeHg burden only impedes DNA synthesis, but not other macromolecular synthesis (RNA and protein). Despite the gradual increase of kidney weight and increase of total RNA and protein content in the remaining kidney, DNA remained unchanged. There is no difference between the control and the MeHg-treated group. 3H-thymidine incorporation study shows that unilateral nephrectomy elicited minimal DNA synthesis in the remaining kidney. Again there is no statistically significant difference of 3H-thymidine incorporation between the control and the MeHg-treated group. On a separate experiment, the folic-acid-induced renal DNA synthesis is also suppressed by MeHg burden. From these data it is concluded that chronic exposure to MeHg does not affect one of the cellular repair mechanisms: hypertrophy.