抄録
Chemical methylation of inorganic mercurial compounds with methylcobalamin, a vitamin B12 analog, was examined. Quantitative determination of methylated mercury by gas chromatography and analysis of the products by thin-layer chromatography revealed that thh methylation proceeded at a markedly high rate by simply mixing methylcobalamin with inorganic mercury, and the reaction gave dimethylmercury as the initial and methylmercury as the final products. Comparative experiments using several other metal halides under the same condition indicated that mercuric chloride is a unique acceptor of the methyl moiety from methylcobalamin among these metal halides tested.
