Detoxication mechanisms

Abstract

Extract

Although this topic has traditionally been discussed in textbooks of biochemistry under this heading, an enormous volume of work in this area on the metabolic fate of drugs and insecticides over the last twenty years shows it to be a somewhat misleading title and the designation of this area of study by the newer term “xenobiochemistry” turns out to be much more justifiable than it would seem at first sight. When the biochemical mechanisms that deal with foreign, unnatural or xenobiotic compounds are investigated in detail, the enzymes concerned are usually found to be quite separate from those which handle the ordinary substrates and cycles on which normal economy of the animal body depends.