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Abstract
Dr. Sozmen worked at the Lipid Research Laboratory in the Department of Medicine at
Manchester Royal Infirmary as a fellow funded by FEBS-short term fellowship and IFCC-Professional
Scientific Exchange programme. During this fellowship, she worked with Dr. Bharti
Mackness under the guidance of Dr. Michael Mackness and learned the methods to determine
several enzymes and PON genotyping as follows:
CETP (cholesterol ester transfer protein)
LCAT (lecithine cholesterol acyl transferase)
PON 1 activity
PON mass
PON genotyping (bath 55 and 192 polymorhisms)
Introduction
Organophosphorus (OP) pesticides are the most prevalent agents used (either by oral
or inhalation means) in suicide attempts in Turkey especially in the Aegean region
where cultivation is one of the main means of subsistence. The potential effect of
organo- phosphates depends upon the amount and form ingested, the toxicity of the
agent, the time lapse involved and a variety of host factors. However, it has been
observed that patients have different clinical signs independent of the environmental
factors listed above. Serum paraoxonase (PON1) is an enzyme located on HDL and it
hydrolyses various substrates including the organophosphate pesticides and lipid peroxides
on LDL. The amino acid polymorphism at position-192 (glutamine and arginine) results
in two allozymes (R and Q), which differ in their hydrolytic activity towards paraoxon.
Another polymorphism at amino acid 55, which is a leucine (L) to methionine (M) substitution,
modulates PON1 activity independently of the 192 polymorphism. The difference in individual
clinical findings is clearly the most important risk factor for susceptibility against
OP’s. These differences seem to be closely related to PON1 activity and ON1 polymorphism
since it has been shown that R-allele is more efficient than the Q-allele in hydrolysing
paraoxon in vitro. The effect of PON1 polymorphism on the level of toxicity of the
patients exposed to OP is still obscure. The aim of the project was to determine the
link between possible individual risk factors (age, PON1 activity, PON1 genotypes,
serum PON1
Concentration, butyrylcholine esterase activity) and prognosis in suicides with organosphosphorus
pesticides.
Materials and Methods
During the period of October 1999-July 2000, 28 patients (men and women) were admitted
to the Emergency Service at Ataturk Research and Educational Hospital in Izmir/Turkey
due to OP poisoning. 26 of them drank a different amount of a variety of OP’s to attempt
suicide, one used injection and one other was exposed to OP’s by inhalation. They
were treated and monitored in the hospital by a team led by Dr. B. Sozmen and Dr.
L.Aslan. Their blood samples were from them upon arrival. As a control group, 66 healthy
persons (men and women) matched for age and sex, volunteered to participate in this
study. Sera and buffy coats with EDTA of both groups were kept in -80°C until sending
them to Manchester Royal Infirmary. Butyrylcholine esterase activities were determined
using butyrylthiocholin as substrate according to the method of Ellman et al, at the
Dept. of Biochemistry in Ege University. PON1 activities were measured by the method
proposed by Dr. Mackness et al using paraoxon as a substrate. PON mass was also determined
with an ELISA method, at Lipid Research Laboratory in Dept. of Medicine of Manchester
Royal Infirmary. PON genotypes (for both polymorphism 55 and 192) were demonstrated
in the same laboratory.
Results
Allele frequencies of patients and controls are detailed in table 1.
We observed an inhibition in PON1 activity as well as BuChE activity due to exposure
to OP pesticides, which was independent of the type and dose of them. After the patients
will be evaluated for PON1 and BuchE activities again, we will discuss our data.
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