A Study for Acute and Four-week Intravenous Toxicity of Alginase in Rats

Alginase (Arginine esterase) is one of the snake venoms which is mainly consisted of arginine esterase and acts as a thrombus -forming inhibitor/thrombus-lysin. These present studies were performed to investigate of the acute and subacute toxicity of the Alginase in rats. In acute toxicity study, rats were single administered intravenously with dosages of 0.001, 0.01. 0.1, 1 and 10U/kg B.W. and examined the number of death, clinical sign, body weight and pathological change for 7days after administration of Alginase. At maximum dose level (10U/kg B.W.), Alginase induced symptoms of shock with cyanosis and dyspnea. But these symptoms dissappeared after 30~50 minutes and we could not find any other toxic effect in rats. Therefore, Value of Alginase was over 10U/kg B.W. in rats. In four-week intravenous toxicity study of Alginase, rats were administered intravenously seven days per week for 28 days, with dosages of 0, 0.0125, 0.125 and 1.25U/kg B.W./day, respectively. Alginase did not caused any death and showed any clinical signs in rats. No significant Alginase -related changes were found in feed uptake, water consumption, hematology, serum biochemistry, urinalysis, ocular examination, organ weight and histopathological examination. From the results, Alginase seems not to have any toxic effect in rats when it were given daily intravenous injections below the dosage 1.25U/kg B.W./day for four weeks.