Lungs foreign compound toxicity

The kidney is an important organ for the excretion of toxic materials and their metaboHtes, and measurement of these substances in urine may provide a convenient basis for monitoring the exposure of an individual to the parent compound in his or her immediate environment. The Hver has as one of its functions the metaboHsm of foreign compounds some pathways result in detoxification and others in metaboHc activation. Also, the Hver may serve as a route of elimination of toxic materials by excretion in bile. In addition to the Hver (bile) and kidney (urine) as routes of excretion, the lung may act as a route of elimination for volatile compounds. The excretion of materials in sweat, hair, and nails is usually insignificant. 

Although the CYP enzymes are the most abundant in the liver, they are also present in other tissues including the skin, kidney, intestine, lung, placenta, and nasal mucosa. Because CYP exists as multiple isozymes with different substrate specificities, the presence or absence of a particular CYP isozyme may contribute to tissue-specific toxicities. Many drugs and other foreign compounds are known to induce one or more of the CYP isozymes, resulting in an increase, decrease, or an alteration in the metabolic pathway of chemicals metabolized by the CYP isozymes involved. Specific examples of these types of interactions are given later in this section. 

Passage of foreign compounds into particular tissues can also occur as a result of a specialized active transport system. For example, the herbicide paraquat (figure 3,16) is taken up by the polyamine transport system into the lungs and thereby reaches a toxic concentration (see Chapter 7j. 

The lung is a particularly vulnerable organ as regards toxic substances since it can be exposed to foreign compounds both in the external environment, and also internally from the bloodstream. The lungs... 

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