Urinary 2-thiothiazolidine-4-carboxylic acid (TTCA) as the major urinary marker of carbon disulfide vapor exposure in rats.

Male Sprague-Dawley rats (200-250 g; 60 per exposure group) were exposed to carbon disulfide (CS2) air concentrations of 0, 50, 150, and 500 ppm(vlv) for 6 hrlday, 5 days/week over six months. Following the exposures, nine rats from each exposure group had four sets of cumulated urines collected (between 0-8, 8-16, 16-24, and 24-48 hr). The urinary parameters measured were: 2-thiothiazolidine-4-carboxylic acid (TTCA), total thioethers (TE), and the compounds responsive to the iodine-azide (IA) test. Urinary TTCA elimination obeyed pseudo-first-order, one-compartment model kinetics of half-time (t0.5) 5.2 +/- 0.3 hr up to 16 hr of collection. The elimination of TE within 16 hr had a t 0.5 of 8.5 +/- 0.6 hr. TTCA, IA, and TE were correlated highly in the first 16 hr. After 16 hr, the to.5 for TE lengthened to 13. 1 hr. At CS2 concentrations of 50, 150, and 500 ppm, the respective t 0.5 for IA-responsive compounds were 12.6, 6.1, and 4.4 hr. TTCA had the highest correlation coefficient and p-valuerelative to...