1996 Volume 116 Issue 3 Pages 192-208
Author's work on the adaptation and protection systems against chemical substances, such as drugs, food additives, heavy metals, pesticides and environmental pollutants, in the living body during the past thirty five years was reviewed. Using the induction of heme and drug metabolizing enzymes (especially heme oxygenase) and of metallothionein in the liver of animals as a biological index, the adaptation and protection of these substances to the body were discussed. This is because that heme oxygenase is a heat shock protein which is induced by various environmental factors, and that metallothionein also has a wide variety of biological functions, and was identified as an acute phase protein in the first phase defense system against environmental stresses. The research under mRNA levels as more sensitive index will advance in the near future.
