Yamada M, Kobayashi Y, Furuoka H, Matsui T
Department of Veterinary Pathology, Obihiro University of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine, Hokkaido, Japan.
J Vet Med Sci. 2000 Aug;62(8):809-13. doi: 10.1292/jvms.62.809.
Autumn crocus poisoning of cattle is characterized by severe diarrhea caused by alkaloid colchicine. Previously, we examined pathologically this poisoning in cattle and reported that enterotoxic lesions were closely associated with apoptosis. To examine enterotoxicity of autumn crocus more precisely, a reproductive study was performed using guinea pigs and mice, and pathological findings associated with autumn crocus poisoning were compared with those of colchicine. Each group of guinea pigs given the bulb of autumn crocus or colchicine exhibited severe diarrhea. Histopathological findings in intoxicated guinea pigs were entirely consistent with those in the autumn crocus-poisoned cattle. In contrast, each group of mice administered with the bulb or colchicine did not develop diarrhea. Our results confirmed that the toxicity of autumn crocus bulb is attributable to the toxicity of ingredient colchicine, and revealed that the guinea pig has high reproducibility of autumn crocus poisoning in cattle and colchicine poisoning in humans. It has been reported that the physiological mechanism of the apoptotic process for eliminating the enterocytes in the mouse and rat differs from that of the guinea pig, monkey, cattle and horse. Taking the observation that the former animals do not develop diarrhea, whereas the latter animals do so in the autumn crocus or colchicine poisoning into consideration, it would seem that the species-difference in enterotoxicity of autumn crocus may be closely associated with the physiological mechanism of eliminating the effete enterocytes.
牛秋水仙中毒的特征是由生物碱秋水仙碱引起的严重腹泻。此前，我们对牛的这种中毒情况进行了病理检查，并报告说肠毒性病变与细胞凋亡密切相关。为了更精确地研究秋水仙的肠毒性，我们使用豚鼠和小鼠进行了一项生殖研究，并将与秋水仙中毒相关的病理结果与秋水仙碱的病理结果进行了比较。给每组豚鼠投喂秋水仙球茎或秋水仙碱后，它们都出现了严重腹泻。中毒豚鼠的组织病理学结果与秋水仙中毒的牛的结果完全一致。相比之下，给每组小鼠投喂秋水仙球茎或秋水仙碱后，它们并未出现腹泻。我们的结果证实，秋水仙球茎的毒性归因于其成分秋水仙碱的毒性，并表明豚鼠对牛的秋水仙中毒和人类的秋水仙碱中毒具有高度的可重复性。据报道，小鼠和大鼠中消除肠上皮细胞的凋亡过程的生理机制与豚鼠、猴子、牛和马的不同。考虑到前一类动物在秋水仙或秋水仙碱中毒时不出现腹泻，而后一类动物会出现腹泻这一观察结果，秋水仙肠毒性的物种差异似乎可能与消除衰老肠上皮细胞的生理机制密切相关。
