Department of Biology, Maynooth University, Co. Kildare, Ireland.
Department of Animal Physiology and Immunology, Institute of Experimental Biology, Faculty of Science, Masaryk University, Kotlarska 2, 611 37 Brno, Czech Republic.
Comp Biochem Physiol C Toxicol Pharmacol. 2017 May;195:44-51. doi: 10.1016/j.cbpc.2017.02.007. Epub 2017 Feb 20.
Potassium nitrate (E252) is widely used as a food preservative and has applications in the treatment of high blood pressure however high doses are carcinogenic. Larvae of Galleria mellonella were administered potassium nitrate to establish whether the acute effects in larvae correlated with those evident in mammals. Intra-haemocoel injection of potassium nitrate resulted in a significant increase in the density of circulating haemocytes and a small change in the relative proportions of haemocytes but haemocytes showed a reduced fungicidal ability. Potassium nitrate administration resulted in increased superoxide dismutase activity and in the abundance of a range of proteins associated with mitochondrial function (e.g. mitochondrial aldehyde dehydrogenase, putative mitochondrial Mn superoxide dismutase), metabolism (e.g. triosephosphate isomerase, glyceraldehyde 3 phosphate dehydrogenase) and nitrate metabolism (e.g. aliphatic nitrilase, glutathione S-transferase). A strong correlation exists between the toxicity of a range of food preservatives when tested in G. mellonella larvae and rats. In this work a correlation between the effect of potassium nitrate in larvae and mammals is shown and opens the way to the utilization of insects for studying the in vivo acute and chronic toxicity of xenobiotics.
硝酸钾（E252）被广泛用作食品防腐剂，在治疗高血压方面有应用，但高剂量具有致癌性。研究者用硝酸钾处理家蚕幼虫，以确定幼虫的急性效应是否与哺乳动物的效应相关。血腔注射硝酸钾导致循环血血细胞密度显著增加，血细胞相对比例略有变化，但血细胞的杀菌能力降低。硝酸钾处理导致超氧化物歧化酶活性增加，并增加了与线粒体功能（如线粒体乙醛脱氢酶、假定的线粒体 Mn 超氧化物歧化酶）、代谢（如磷酸丙糖异构酶、甘油醛 3 磷酸脱氢酶）和硝酸盐代谢（如脂族腈酶、谷胱甘肽 S-转移酶）相关的一系列蛋白质的丰度。当在家蚕幼虫和大鼠中测试一系列食品防腐剂的毒性时，存在着很强的相关性。在这项工作中，显示了硝酸钾在家蚕幼虫和哺乳动物中的作用之间的相关性，并为利用昆虫研究外源性物质的体内急性和慢性毒性开辟了道路。
