Sodium monofluoroacetate effects

Savarie, P.J., G.H. Matschke, R.M. Engeman, and K.A. Fagerstone. 1994. Susceptibility of prairie dogs to compound 1080 (sodium monofluoroacetate) baits and secondary poisoning effects in European ferrets under laboratory conditions. Pages 134-143 in A.A. Seawright and C.T. Eason (eds.). Proceedings of the Science Workshop on 1080. Roy. Soc. N.Z., Misc. Ser. 28. 

Twigg, L.E., D.R. King, and A.J. Bradley. 1988a. The effect of sodium monofluoroacetate on plasma testosterone concentration in Tiliqua rugosa (Gray). Comp. Biochem. Physiol. 91C 343-347. 

Ward, P.F.V. and N.S. Huskisson. 1969. The metabolism of fluoroacetate by plants. Biochem. Jour. 113 9P. Wong, D.H., W.E. Kirkpatrick, D.R. King, and J.E. Kinnear. 1992a. Defluorination of sodium monofluoroacetate (1080) by microorganisms isolated from western Australian soils. Soil Biol. Biochem. 24 833-838. Wong, D.H., W.E. Kirkpatrick, D.R. King, and J.E. Kinnear. 1992b. Environmental factors and microbial inoculum size, and their effect on biodefluorination of sodium monofluoroacetate (1080). Soil Biol. Biochem. 9 838-843. 

Strychnine-poisoned birds show clinical effects within 2h of ingesting the product. The birds become apprehensive and nervous and have violent tetanic convulsions, which cause them to become exhausted and to die of hypoxia. Sodium monofluoroacetate causes overstimulation of the CNS and myocardial depression. Cardiac failure is the cause of death and occurs within 1 h of consuming the product or contaminated carcass. 

Tsuji, H., Shimizu, H., Dote, T, et al., 2009. Effects of sodium monofluoroacetate on glucose, amino-acid, and fatty-acid metabolism and risk assessment of glucose supplementation. Drug. Chem. Toxicol. 32 (4), 353-361. 

Among the most deadly of simple compounds is sodium fluoroacetate. The LD50 (the dose lethal for 50% of animals receiving it) is only 0.2 mg/kg for rats, over tenfold less than that of the nerve poison diisopropylphosphofluoridate (Chapter 12).a b Popular, but controversial, as the rodent poison "1080," fluoroacetate is also found in the leaves of several poisonous plants in Africa, Australia, and South America. Surprisingly, difluoroacetate HCF2-COO is nontoxic and biochemical studies reveal that monofluoroacetate has no toxic effect on cells until it is converted metabolically in a "lethal synthesis" to 2R,3R-2-fluorocitrate, which is a competitive inhibitor of aconitase (aconitate hydratase, Eq. 13-17).b This fact was difficult to understand since citrate formed by the reaction of fluorooxalo-acetate and acetyl-CoA has only weak inhibitory activity toward the same enzyme. Yet, it is the fluorocitrate formed from fluorooxaloacetate that contains a fluorine atom at a site that is attacked by aconitase in the citric acid cycle. 

---