Figure 1: Effects of mercury compounds on purified caspase 3/caspase 7 [A] and LDH [B] activity. These assays were performed to determine whether HgCl2 or CH3Hg+ directly interfere with caspase activity which would confound the interpretation of cellular data. Either 0.1 or 10 ppm mercury compound was added to 0.2 U/ well of purified enzyme. Differing control values between enzymes are due to different specific activity of the purified form. Data were analyzed by one-way ANOVA (treatment) followed by Dunnett’s test for comparison to control (0 ppm). Data are expressed as mean ± SEM of N=4 in duplicate.