Rong Guan¹ and Han Dai²

¹Immune Disease Institute, Harvard Medical School, 200 Longwood Ave. Boston, MA 02115. ²Department of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, Harvard Medical School, 250 Longwood Ave. Boston, MA 02115.  

Abstract

Chelation therapy has been the major treatment for heavy metal poisoning. Various chelating agents have been developed and tested for treatment of heavy metal intoxications, including mercury poisoning. It has been clearly shown that chelating agents could rescue the toxicity caused by heavy metal intoxication, but the potential preventive role of chelating agents against heavy metal poisoning has not been explored much. Recent paper by Siddiqi and colleagues has suggested a protective role of chelating agents against mercury poisoning, which provides a promising research direction for broader application of chelation therapy in prevention and treatment of mercury poisoning.