Chair and Department of Anatomy, Medical University of Lublin, Jaczewskiego 4, 20-090 Lublin, Poland.
Chair and Department of Forensic Medicine, Medical University of Lublin, 20-090 Lublin, Poland.
Molecules. 2022 Mar 15;27(6):1911. doi: 10.3390/molecules27061911.
Metals perform many important physiological functions in the human body. The distribution of elements in different tissues is not uniform. Moreover, some structures can be the site of an accumulation of essential or toxic metals, leading to multi-directional intracellular damage. In the nervous system, these disorders are especially dangerous. Metals dyshomeostasis has been linked to a variety of neurological disorders which end up leading to permanent injuries. The multi-elemental composition of the human brain is still the subject of numerous investigations and debates. In this study, for the first time, the meninges, i.e., the dura mater and the arachnoid, were examined for their elemental composition by means of inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). Tissue samples were collected post mortem from those who died suddenly as a result of suicide ( = 20) or as a result of injuries after an accident ( = 20). The interactions between 51 elements in both groups showed mainly weak positive correlations, which dominated the arachnoid mater compared to the dura mater. The study showed differences in the distribution of some elements within the meninges in the studied groups. The significant differences concerned mainly metals from the lanthanide family (Ln), macroelements (Na, K, Ca, Mg), a few micronutrients (Co), and toxic cadmium (Cd). The performed evaluation of the elemental distribution in the human meninges sheds new light on the trace metals metabolism in the central nervous system, although we do not yet fully understand the role of the human meninges.
金属在人体内发挥许多重要的生理功能。元素在不同组织中的分布并不均匀。此外，某些结构可能是必需或有毒金属积累的部位，导致细胞内多方向损伤。在神经系统中，这些紊乱尤其危险。金属动态平衡失调与多种神经紊乱有关，最终导致永久性损伤。人脑的多元素组成仍然是许多研究和争论的主题。在这项研究中，首次通过电感耦合等离子体质谱法（ICP-MS）对脑膜，即硬脑膜和蛛网膜，进行了元素组成的检查。组织样本是从因自杀（= 20）或事故受伤（= 20）而突然死亡的人死后收集的。两组之间 51 种元素的相互作用主要表现为弱正相关，与硬脑膜相比，蛛网膜中这种相关性更为突出。该研究显示了研究组内脑膜中某些元素分布的差异。主要涉及镧系元素（Ln）、常量元素（Na、K、Ca、Mg）、几种微量元素（Co）和有毒镉（Cd）的显著差异。对人脑膜中元素分布的评估，尽管我们尚未完全理解人脑膜的作用，但为中枢神经系统中的痕量金属代谢提供了新的认识。
