Effect of short‐term oral administration of acephate on immune function in mice

Abstract

Acephate (O,S‐dimethyl acetyl phosphoramidothioic acid), an organophosphate (OP) foliar pesticide, is widely utilized for agriculture and domestic purposes due to its efficiently of insecticide property. The toxicity of acephate is attributed to its bioactivation to methamidophos and inhibits the action of acetylcholinesterase. Previous study has been reported that short‐term oral administration of acephate decreases the number of leukocytes and lymphocytes and reduces serum total proteins and globulins in mice. However, the effect of acephate in regulating immune response has not been well examined. The aim of this study is to investigate whether short‐term oral administration of acephate on immune function in mice. Eight weeks old male C57BL/6 mice were daily oral administration of water or acephate (1/40th of apparent LD50 −8.78 mg/kg or 1/20th of apparent LD50 −17.55 mg/kg) for 28 days. At day 28, a low dose of LPS (1 mg/ml) was intraperitoneally injected into the mice for 6 hr to mimic bacterial infection. The body weight was weighted weekly. The uptake activity of fluorescent conjugated Escherichia coli by leukocytes was analyzed by flow cytometry. Complete Blood Count (CBC), C‐Reactive Protein (CRP), blood urea nitrogen (BUN), creatinine, aspartate aminotransferase (AST), and alanine aminotransferase (ALT) were examined. In addition, the lung, liver and kidney samples were collected and examined by histopathology. This study provides new insight into the toxicity of acephate on immune function.Support or Funding InformationThis study was supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan, R.O.C. (Grant No. MOST 107‐2320‐B‐037‐019).This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2019 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.