[Adaptation and protection systems against chemical substances in living body].
Author's work on the adaptation and protection systems against chemical substances, such as drugs, food additives, heavy metals, pesticides and environmental pollutants, in the living body during the past thirty five years was reviewed. Using the induction of heme and drug metabolizing enzymes (especially heme oxygenase) and of metallothionein in the liver of animals as a biological index, the adaptation and protection of these substances to the body were discussed. This is because that heme oxygenase is a heat shock protein which is induced by various environmental factor, and that metallothionein also has a wide variety of biological functions, and was identified as an acute phase protein in the first phase defense system against environmental stresses. The research under mRNA levels as more sensitive index will advance in the near future.
Ariyoshi
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Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Nagasaki University, Japan.
D000222:Adaptation, Physiological / Q000502:physiology; D000818:Animals; D002105:Cadmium Poisoning; D004790:Enzyme Induction; D006419:Heme Oxygenase (Decyclizing) / Q000096:biosynthesis / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D008658:Inactivation, Metabolic; D008099:Liver / Q000201:enzymology; D008668:Metallothionein / Q000096:biosynthesis / Q000502:physiology
D008668:Metallothionein; D006419:Heme Oxygenase (Decyclizing)