Bioaccessibility and variation of arsenic species in polished rice grains by an in vitro physiologically based extraction test method

The bioaccessibility and speciation of arsenic (As) in rice grains have been investigated by the physiologically based extraction test (PBET) method. A total of 42 rice samples were collected from Hunan Province, a typical mine-impacted province in China. The bioaccessibility in the gastrointestinal tract was 71.7 ± 13.5% for the collected rice grains. Arsenite [As(III)] was the predominant As species in the simulated gastric and gastrointestinal solutions, followed by dimethylarsinic acid (DMA), arsenate [As(V)] and monomethylarsonic acid (MMA). The bioaccessible As(V) was irrelevant to As(V) in the rice grains, suggesting that interconversion between As(V) and other species was occurred in the simulated gastrointestinal tract. Monte-Carlo simulation was introduced to assess the health risk from exposure to inorganic As. The average values for target hazard quotient (THQ) and bioaccessible THQ were 2.704 and 1.637, respectively. The inclusion of bioaccessibility reduced the probability of non-carcinogenic health risk from 97.32% to 76.86%.