11.7.07

Carbon tetrachloride - The sweet smell of hepatotoxicity

  • saccharine-smelling (akin to the scent of a dry cleaner's) synthetic halomethane widely used in the early 20th century to extinguish fires, help cool things down (it is a good refrigerant), and dry clean clothing
    • currently used to make other refrigerants
  • used as an insecticide in the good old US of A up until the 1970s, at which point it was finally banned
  • when subjected to high temperatures, it can form the toxic gas phosgene
  • if you get a lot of it in you somehow, it'll wreck havoc on your liver, kidneys, and central nervous system
    • the liver is particularly sensitive, likely reflecting the presence of a tonne of xenobiotic-metabolizing enzymes such as CYP2E1 that are capable of changing a whole bunch of it into highly reactive free radical intermediates
  • has been shown to cause cancer in lab animals when either swallowed or inhaled
Weber LW, Boll M, Stampfl A. Hepatotoxicity and mechanism of action of haloalkanes: carbon tetrachloride as a toxicological model. Crit Rev Toxicol. 2003;33(2):105-36. Review.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_tetrachloride
http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/tfacts30.html

2 chemically inspired comments:

Vicky said...

Not carbon tet related, but
the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology have made a huge text book freely available online that covers the cutting edge of pretty much everything we know about how drugs affect the mind and brain.


http://www.acnp.org/default.aspx?Page=5thGenerationChapters

CND said...

Hey Vicky, thanks for the heads up! Free text books rock my world. Especially neuropsychopharmacology ones.