Toxic Response Of Biological System

Toxins are chemical, biological or physical substances that cause damage to an organism when they enter the biological system. These toxics can affect the entire system of the organism or just a substructure of the organism like cells or organs. Biological systems respond to toxins in various ways and this depends on many factors. Even though many toxic effects of foreign compounds are biochemically based, the way these effects are expressed may be very different. The interaction of toxins with normal metabolic processes can cause muscle paralysis or even fall in blood pressure. Toxic responses can be detected in various ways, these responses may be the all-or-none type like death of organism or they can be graded responses. Therefore the means of detection can be death, pathological changes, biochemical change, physiological change and changes in the normal status of the biological systems.This paper will therefore look at how biological systems respond to toxins (Monsoon, 2010).

Direct toxic action: tissue lesions refers to how Toxic compounds cause direct damage to tissues that leads to death of some or even all cells in an organ. This damage may either be reversible or irreversible and the toxic response will depend on factors such as how important the tissue is, the degree of its specialization, its reverse functional capacity and how able the tissue is to repair the damage (Timbrel, 2000).

Toxins may also lead Biochemical lesions to biological systems. This is biochemical changes like absence or inactivation of an enzyme that may cause the diminishment of the normal healthy state of an organism and may often lead to pathological conditions.

Pharmacological, physiological and biochemical effects of toxins are considered together since they are closely interrelated. Toxins have an effect on the homeostasis of an organism by altering the biochemical process. These effects can be reversible if they involve enzyme receptor binding .these effects include the inhibition of cellular respiration, disturbance of central nervous sytem, anaesthesia, noxia, respiratory failure, changes in water/ion balance, ion transport and may others.

Immunotocicity also termed as immunological reactions this involves the reaction of toxic compounds reaction with the immune system. The function of the immune system is the protection of organism against infection, foreign proteins and neoclastic cells. The toxic substances can therefore react with component of the immune system to inhibit or depress the immune system; hence inhibit the functioning of the immune system. They can also react to bring about an elicitation of an immune response. This type of response to foreign substances is termed as allergic or hypersensitivity reaction. These responses can be minor such as development of skin rash or they may be fatal such as anaphylactic shock (Timbrel, 2000).

Teratogenicity the development of toxicology involves the interference with normal development of embryo or fetus that brings about abnormalities in neonate. The interference may be in many forms hence no specific general mechanism underlies this type of response. Toxins that have a teratogenic response may be drugs that are taken during pregnancy, radiation, chemical hazards in workplace, dietary deficiencies and natural contaminants. Teratogenicity is confined to effect of toxins on somatic cells within developing embryo or fetus and the consequent effects on the particular individual.

Mutations are heritable changes that are produced in the cell genotype. Genetic toxicity may therefore be induced by various agents that include foreign compounds and this occurrence is an implication that there have been changes in the DNA double helix which is the source of genetic information. The interaction of toxins and genetic material can be divided into three types of effects; mutagenesis which is the loss, addition or alteration of small base pairs. Aneuploidization, which refers to the acquisition or loss of a complete chromosome and Clastogenesis which is the loss, addition, rearrangement of chromosome parts.Carcinogenicity or chemical carcinogenesis involves a complex multistage process of abnormal cell growth and differentiation that leads to cancer. This occurs as a result of exposure to some toxins and there are two stages that take place this is the initiation where normal cells undergo irreversible changes and promotion in which the initiated cells are stimulated to progress cancer. The chemical toxins can act as initiators or promoters of tumors (Monosson, E. 2010).

References

Monosson, E. (2010).Toxicity. Retrieved November 26, 2012 from http://www.eoearth.org/article/ToxicityTimbrel, J. (2000).Principles of Biochemical Toxicology. Third edition Chapter 6 (pg105-256).Reetrieved November 26, 2012 from http://www.scribd.com/doc/48908390/074-Principles-of-Biochemical-Toxicology-3-Ed