Tetraethyl lead toxicity in rats.

Abstract

PREVIOUS work in these laboratories on the toxicity of certain organo-lead and tin compounds have led to the conclusion that tetraethyl lead and tetraethyl tin are toxic to animals because they are rapidly converted by the liver to triethyl lead or triethyl tin respectively1–3. The triethyl compounds are extremely active inhibitors of metabolic processes4 particularly of glucose metabolism in the brain5,6. However, recently Vardanis and Quastel7 have claimed that both tetraethyl lead and tetraethyl tin are themselves inhibitors of certain metabolic processes in brain, and differ in their action from the triethyl compounds. They found that brain slices prepared from rats injected with tetraethyl lead or tin were able to metabolize glucose at a normal rate but that there was some impairment in their ability to utilize glutamate or glycine. The lack of effect on glucose oxidation was surprising in view of my earlier work1,2.