%0 Journal Article
%T Evaluation of drug-induced tissue injury by measuring alanine aminotransferase (ALT) activity in silkworm hemolymph
%A Yoshinori Inagaki
%A Yasuhiko Matsumoto
%A Keiko Kataoka
%A Naoya Matsuhashi
%A Kazuhisa Sekimizu
%J BMC Pharmacology and Toxicology
%D 2012
%I BioMed Central
%R 10.1186/2050-6511-13-13
%X Injection of CCl4 into the hemocoel led to an increase in ALT activity. The increase in ALT activity was attenuated by pretreatment with N-acetyl-L-cysteine. Injection of benzoic acid derivatives, ferric sulfate, sodium valproate, tetracycline, amiodarone hydrochloride, methyldopa, ketoconazole, pemoline (Betanamin), N-nitroso-fenfluramine, and D-galactosamine also increased ALT activity.These findings indicate that silkworms are useful for evaluating the effects of chemicals that induce tissue injury in mammals.Tissue injury induced by chemicals in mammals, including humans, is associated with the rapid development of severe impairment of the organs involved in detoxification, e.g., fulminant hepatic failure [1]. Therefore, assessment of chemical-induced tissue injury is crucial in drug discovery.In the development of novel therapeutic medicines, in vivo trials using animal models are essential for predicting toxicity and drug disposition in the human body. Mice and rats are used to evaluate the toxicity of synthesized compounds and natural medicines [2-4]. The use of mammals for experimental models, however, is associated with a number of problems, such as high cost and ethical issues. An alternative animal model is needed to overcome these problems.Although invertebrate animals such as Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) and Drosophila larvae have been proposed as model animals for evaluating bacterial pathogenicity and therapeutic effects of antibiotics, their body sizes are too small to inject a fixed amount of sample [5,6]. Large insect larvae can be easily injected into the midgut or subcutaneously with sample solution using a syringe. Silkworm hemolymph and tissue can be harvested separately and used in biochemical, haematological, and immunological analyses [7,8]. Thus, the silkworm is an invertebrate model that can relieve the issues related to the use of mammals and thus promote pharmaceutical studies [7,9-12]. We previously demonstrated that the lethal d
%K Silkworm
%K Alanine aminotransferase
%K Tissue injury
%K Animal model
%U http://www.biomedcentral.com/2050-6511/13/13