Increase of cadmium-thiolate clusters as a measure of morphological non-toxic cadmium accumulation in the rat liver.
When cadmium is chronically administered to rats, an increase by more than 10% of protein bound disulphides and cadmium-thiolate clusters appears to be an indicator for non-toxic accumulation of cadmium in liver and kidney and probably in other organs as well. Using enzyme histochemistry, no damage could be observed in these livers, on the contrary, even signs of increased cellular activity could be demonstrated with specific staining for single stranded RNA. It is clearly demonstrated that in the case of 2 livers with the same quantity of accumulated cadmium morphological damage is completely dependent on dose and schedule of administration. However, despite the fact that cadmium is retained very well in rat livers showing an increase in protein-bound disulphides and cadmium-thiolate clusters, there are still small morphological changes, especially in cells and tissues that appear to have a relatively small potency for producing cadmium-binding proteins.
D000818:Animals; D002104:Cadmium / Q000032:analysis* / Q000494:pharmacology; D002467:Cell Nucleus / Q000187:drug effects / Q000648:ultrastructure; D002843:Chromatin / Q000187:drug effects / Q000648:ultrastructure; D004305:Dose-Response Relationship, Drug; D005260:Female; D008099:Liver / Q000032:analysis* / Q000187:drug effects / Q000648:ultrastructure; D008668:Metallothionein / Q000032:analysis*; D051381:Rats; D011919:Rats, Inbred Strains
D002843:Chromatin; C004203:cadmium-binding protein; D002104:Cadmium; D008668:Metallothionein