Evidence for the presence of arsenobetaine and another organoarsenical in shrimps

Hot base digestion of fish meal and shrimps in combination with sodium borohydride reduction produces only trimethylarsine (TMA). This treatment produces TMA in different amounts relative to the total arsenic content which is mainly of organic structure. These materials of marine origin yielded 94% and 69% resp. of the calculated amount of TMA. Arsenobetaine and arsenocholine were degraded under identical conditions and were found to produce only TMA (95% and 8% resp.). Furthermore, studies using thin-layer chromatography, electrophoresis and ion-exchange chromatography have confirmed the existence of one organoarsenic compound in fish meal and two organoarsenicals in shrimps. The major organoarsenic compound in fish meal was identified as arsenobetaine by masspectroscopy. In shrimps about $\text{2}\text{3}$ of the organoarsenic compounds was shown to be arsenobetaine and there is a strong indication for the presence of arsenocholine.