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Quantitatively evaluating detoxification of the hepatotoxic microcystin-LR through the glutathione (GSH) pathway in SD rats

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An Erratum to this article was published on 23 January 2016

Abstract

Glutathione (GSH) plays crucial roles in antioxidant defense and detoxification metabolism of microcystin-LR (MC-LR). However, the detoxification process of MC-LR in mammals remains largely unknown. This paper, for the first time, quantitatively analyzes MC-LR and its GSH pathway metabolites (MC-LR-GSH and MC-LR-Cys) in the liver of Sprague–Dawley (SD) rat after MC-LR exposure. Rats received intraperitoneal (i.p.) injection of 0.25 and 0.5 lethal dose 50 (LD50) of MC-LR with or without pretreatment of buthionine-(S,R)-sulfoximine (BSO), an inhibitor of GSH synthesis. The contents of MC-LR-GSH were relatively low during the experiment; however, the ratio of MC-LR-Cys to MC-LR reached as high as 6.65 in 0.5 LD50 group. These results demonstrated that MC-LR-GSH could be converted to MC-LR-Cys efficiently, and this metabolic rule was in agreement with the data of aquatic animals previously reported. MC-LR contents were much higher in BSO + MC-LR-treated groups than in the single MC-LR-treated groups. Moreover, the ratio of MC-LR-Cys to MC-LR decreased significantly after BSO pretreatment, suggesting that the depletion of GSH induced by BSO reduced the detoxification of MCs. Moreover, MC-LR remarkably induced liver damage, and the effects were more pronounced in BSO pretreatment groups. In conclusion, this study verifies the role of GSH in the detoxification of MC-LR and furthers our understanding of the biochemical mechanism for SD rats to counteract toxic cyanobacteria.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank editor Philippe Garrigues and anonymous reviewers for their useful comments and suggestions on the manuscript. This study was supported by the National Nature Science Foundation of China (grant number 31070457 and 31322013) and the State Key Laboratory of Freshwater Ecology and Biotechnology (grant number 2014FBZ02).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Fisheries, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, 430070, Hubei, China

    Xiaochun Guo, Ping Xie, Huihui Fan & Cheng Zeng

  2. Donghu Experimental Station of Lake Ecosystems, State Key Laboratory of Freshwater Ecology and Biotechnology, Institute of Hydrobiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, 430072, Hubei, China

    Xiaochun Guo, Liang Chen, Jun Chen, Ping Xie, Shangchun Li, Jun He, Wei Li, Huihui Fan, Dezhao Yu & Cheng Zeng

  3. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Liang Chen, Shangchun Li, Wei Li & Dezhao Yu

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  1. Xiaochun Guo
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  2. Liang Chen
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  3. Jun Chen
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Correspondence to Jun Chen.

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Responsible editor: Philippe Garrigues

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Guo, X., Chen, L., Chen, J. et al. Quantitatively evaluating detoxification of the hepatotoxic microcystin-LR through the glutathione (GSH) pathway in SD rats. Environ Sci Pollut Res 22, 19273–19284 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-015-5531-2

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