¹H NMR-based metabonomic profiling of rat serum and urine to characterize the subacute effects of carbamate insecticide propoxur

Abstract

Carbamate insecticide propoxur is widely used in agriculture and public health programs. To prevent adverse health effects arising from exposure to this insecticide, sensitive methods for detection of early stage organismal changes are necessary. We present here an integrative metabonomic approach to investigate toxic effects of pesticide in experimental animals. Results showed that propoxur even at low dose levels can induce oxidative stress, impair liver function, enhance ketogenesis and fatty acid β-oxidation, and increase glycolysis, which contribute to the hepatotoxocity. These findings highlight the applicability of ¹H NMR spectroscopy and multivariate statistics in elucidating the toxic effects of propoxur.

Keywords::

• NMR
• metabonomics
• pesticide
• subacute
• toxicity

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Huang Huang and Dr. Jill Wentzell for kindly polishing the English of the manuscript.

Declaration of interest

This work was partly supported by the CAS Innovation Program (No. KZCX2-EW-404), the SKLECE program (No. KF2010-16), and NSFC program (No. 31071919).