Ammonia poisoning causes muscular but not liver damage in cattle

Abstract

Twelve steers were intraruminally administered a high dose (0.5g/kg BW) of urea to study the damage effect of ammonia poisoning on liver and/or muscles. Blood samples were collected to determine ammonia and activities of γGT, AST and CK. Eleven steers were successfully poisoned and treated properly, but one succumbed. Poisoned cattle showed high concentration of ammonia, and higher activities of AST and CK. The higher the ammonia, the greater were the activities of AST (r=0.59) and CK (r=0.61). The correlation between AST and CK was high and significant (r=0.80), but not between AST and γGT (r=0.19). The activities of AST and CK were higher after the beginning of the convulsive episodes due to ammonia poisoning. Those results showed that occurred muscle damage instead of liver damage since CK is a typical enzyme from skeletal muscle; AST is found either in skeletal muscle and hepatocytes, while γGT is present in hepatic cells.Keywords: cattle, ammonia poisoning, urea, muscle damage, liver AST (r=0,59) Palavras-chave: bovino, intoxicação por amônia, uréia, lesão muscular, fígado RESUMO Doze novilhos foram experimentalmente intoxicados por administração intrarruminal com alta dose de uréia (0,5g/kg PV) para estudar o efeito da intoxicação por uréia sobre o fígado e/ou musculatura. Foram coletadas amostras de sangue no decorrer do experimento para determinar o teor de amônia e as atividades de gama glutamiltransferase (γGT), aspartato aminotransferase (AST) e creatina quinase (CK). Onze novilhos apresentaram quadro clínico típico de intoxicação por amônia, porém um animal sucumbiu. Animais intoxicados apresentaram alto teor de amônia e elevada atividade de CK e AST. Quanto mais elevados foram os teores de amônia maiores foram as atividades de

Carbendazim Impends Hepatic Necrosis when Combined with Imazalil or Cypermethrin

“…Creatine kinase is a catalyst of ATP renewal in peripheral tissues under anaerobic conditions, and LDH in peripheral tissues turns pyruvate into lactate to compensate ATP generation under diminished oxidative phosphoryla-tion. Thus, elevation in those two enzymes also points that there was a hypoxic condition because of pesticide treatment, especially in the cypermethrin and imazalil group and to a lesser extent in the carbendazim group [24][25][26]. Impaired respiration related to oxidative phosphorylation and rapid depletion of cellular ATP was previously documented for imazalil [27].…”

Subchronic Oral Exposure to Prometryne Changes Relations of Blood Biochemistry Indicators in Mice

“…In our experiment, slight, mainly nonsignificant changes in AST and ALT and their proportion after prometryne poisoning, point to lesser liver damage which is in agreement with other authors (Edge et al 2006;Gaskill et al 2005;Gopal and Rosen 2000). The significant correlations between the enzymes should therefore be observed in the direction of renal damage (GGT, ALP and creatinine), and possible muscular (creatinine and LDH) damage (Carter et al 2008;Antonelli et al 2007). Unchanged liver weight and significant loss of kidney weight in poisoned animals and their control at the end of subchronic exposure period give further support to that explanation.…”