Researchers Discover Tungsten Deposits in Bone

A new discovery by researchers from McGill University, which was made thanks to scans taken at the Canadian Light Source, may end up changing how the metallic element tungsten is used.

By exposing mice to tungsten through their drinking water, then examining their bones using the synchrotron, researchers found the element accumulated in the bone marrow — the tissue where bone grows and immune cells form — and in the bone tissue that determines its rigidity.

“There has been a call for some of this research to be done and so we’re kind of part of this larger project to look into the potential adverse effects that tungsten may have on human health,” said Cassidy VanderSchee, a PhD research student and member of the McGill research group headed by chemistry professor Scott Bohle.

“Tungsten has a prevailing use in a lot of materials because it’s a really interesting metal — it has a high melting point and is great when combined with other metals. It’s used in such things as ammunition or drill bits; it has also been proposed for use in medical applications such as materials that are implanted in the body or medications.”

By looking at how tungsten accumulates within the body, VanderSchee and the rest of Bohle’s team discovered the deposits of the element were localized within the bone and that the tungsten actually changed forms within the body to become more reactive than the initial form in which it was administered.

“The conclusion from that is that tungsten is interacting with the body,” she said. “If tungsten was non-active or non-toxic in the body, it should just pass right through — it shouldn’t be accumulated at all.”

VanderSchee noted the research is only the first step in understanding what happens once a deposit of tungsten has accumulated in bone. Next, the researchers plan to uncover where and how the body chemically transforms tungsten, and whether the effects of the accumulation are toxic so they can develop a drug able to remove it.

“We haven’t looked at specifically any biological toxic effects,” she said.

“It’s definitely interacting with the body and it’s showing that really more research is needed in order to understand how it is interacting with the body so we definitively can say whether it is toxic and what regulations, if any, should be put in place.”

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