Investigations on the Sensitivity of Several Biochemical and Histological Methods after Liver Intoxication Induced by Pentachlorophenol and Carbon Tetrachloride

The connection between injury to energy metabolism, lipid peroxidation and cytotoxicity may be a target in the search for sensitive parameters for detecting different types of hepatocellular damage. The objective of the present study was to define more precisely the availability of thiobarbituric acid (TBA) reactivity, a method for studying lipid peroxidation, and of polarographic determination of oxidative phosphorylation in this field. Carbon tetrachloride (CCl4) was used as an experimental model agent to initiate lipid peroxidation after the metabolic conversion to the trichloromethyl radical (Recknagel et al 1989). Pentachlorophenol (PCP) which acts as an uncoupler of oxidative phosphorylation (Koch and Axmann 1987) was also used.