Incorporation of arsenic in mammal bone: X-ray absorption spectroscopy

X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) of the distal tibia of a modern deer, Odocoileus virginianus, revealed that the energy position of the As K edge matched that of a reference arsenic(V) model compound. Comparison of the x-ray absorption near edge structure (XANES) of the deer spectrum to the spectra of model As compounds indicated a close match to arsenate(V), e.g., zinc orthoarsenate(5). This indicates that the nearest-neighbor shell of the arsenic in the bone consists of four oxygens in the tetrahedral arrangement typical of arsenic(V) oxysalts. The XANES analysis demonstrates that the arsenic in the deer bone is not associated with an organic compound as a result of methylation. This suggests that the arsenic is associated with the mineral fraction of the bone, most likely with As substituting for P at the latter's structural site in the hydroxyapatite. The XAS data for the deer bone were very noisy due to the low level of arsenic present, just over 1 ppm.. A total of 18 scans, taking nearly a full 8-hour beam shift, were averaged to obtain the spectrum studied. It is not clear that the second neighbor shell can be characterized sufficiently from these data to confirm that As substitutes for P in hydroxyapatite. We conducted our XAS experiments on beam line 4-3 at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory. Data were collected in the fluorescence mode, using a solid state, 13-element Ge-detector. The energy reference was As(0) metal foil run parasitically in transmission mode during collection of the bone spectra. The edge shift seen in the experimental and As(V) model compound relative to the energy position of the arsenic(0) foil is consistent with the additional energy required to photoeject the 1-s electron of As(V), relative to that required for As(0). Arsenic content of the deer bone was determined by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry.