ToxSci Advance Access originally published online on January 12, 2004
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Toxicological Sciences 77, 185-187 (2004)
Copyright © 2004 by the Society of Toxicology
TOXICOLOGICAL HIGHLIGHT |
Organophosphates, Serine Esterase Inhibition, and Modeling of Organophosphate Toxicity

* Center for Environmental Health Sciences, College of Veterinary Medicine, and
Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Mississippi State University, Mississippi State, Mississippi 39762
ABSTRACT
The highlighted article in this issue (Ashani and Pistinner, "Estimation of the Upper Limit of Human Butyrylcholinesterase Dose Required for Protection against Organophosphates Toxicity: A Mathematically Based Toxicokinetic Model") is an innovative approach to modeling the amount of protective enzyme, human butyrylcholinesterase, that could be administered to humans to protect them from the lethal effects of organophosphate nerve agents. The threat of nerve agent exposures at lethal levels regrettably remains a threat to military as well as civilian populations, and the authors of this article have used their previous experimental data along with new in vitro data to devise and calibrate a mathematical model that could have practical utility in the prophylaxis of military personnel against chemical warfare agents.