The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 269 No 7219 p518
12 October 2002

This article
Reprint
Photocopy

News summary

Related websites
Science (www.sciencemag.org)

Paracetamol poisoning

Using a mouse bred to lack constitutive androstane receptors (CAR), researchers have shown that this protein is critical to the toxicity of paracetamol.

"We found out that high doses of paracetamol activate CAR, and that CAR then activates target genes that increase toxicity," said Dr David Moore, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas. He added that blocking CAR would provide a different approach to treating paracetamol toxicity. The study is published in this week's issue of Science.