Arsenic (As) is extremely toxic to living organisms at high concentration. In aquatic systems, As exists in
different chemical forms. The two major inorganic As (iAs) species are As
V
, which is thermodynamically
stable in oxic waters, and As
III
, which is predominant in anoxic conditions. Photosynthetic microorganisms (e.g., phytoplankton and cyanobacteria) take up As
V
, biotransform it to As
III
, then biomethylate it
to methylarsenic (MetAs) forms. Although As
III
is more toxic than As
V
, As
III
is much more easily excreted
from the cells than As
V
. Therefore, majority of researchers consider the reduction of As
V
to As
III
as a
detoxification process. The biomethylation process results in the conversion of toxic iAs to the less
toxic pentavalent MetAs forms (monomethylarsonate; MMAV
, dimethylarsonate; DMAV
, and trimethylarsenic oxide; TMAO
V
) and trimethylarsine (TMAO
III
). However, biomethylation by microorganisms also
produces monomethylarsenite (MMA
III
) and dimethylarsenite (DMA
III
), which are more toxic than iAs, as
a result of biomethylation by the microorganisms, demonstrates the need to reconsider to what extent
As biomethylation contributes to a detoxification process. In this review, we focused on the discussion
of whether the biotransformation of As species in microorganisms is really a detoxification process with
recent data