BioProject

Acetaminophen can adversely affect the liver especially when overdosed. We used whole blood as a surrogate to identify genes as potential early indicators of an acetaminophen-induced response. More...

Acetaminophen can adversely affect the liver especially when overdosed. We used whole blood as a surrogate to identify genes as potential early indicators of an acetaminophen-induced response. In a clinical study, healthy human subjects were dosed daily with 4g of either acetaminophen or placebo pills for 7 days and evaluated over the course of 14 days. Alanine aminotransferase (ALT) levels for responders to acetaminophen increased between days 4 and 9 after dosing and 12 genes were detected with expression profiles significantly altered within 24hrs. The early responsive genes separated the subjects by class and dose period. In addition, the genes clustered patients who overdosed on acetaminophen apart from controls and also predicted the exposure classifications with 100% accuracy. The responsive genes serve as early indicators of an acetaminophen exposure and their gene expression profiles can potentially be evaluated as molecular indicators for further consideration. Overall design: Randomized, single-blind, placebo-controlled, clinical study. Healthy male and female individuals from 18 – 58 years old weighing 55 kg to 85 kg volunteered as subjects in the study. Subjects were enrolled for 14 days each and were acclimated for 3 days on a controlled, standardized whole-food diet in order to assure a uniform nutritional intake. Starting on day 0 and until day 7 relative to the start of dosing, each subject received daily repeat dosing every 6 hrs (i.e. 4x daily) of either 1g of acetaminophen or placebo pills orally. Blood was collected at 8 a.m. on each day of the clinical study for alanine aminotransferase (ALT) measurement and complete blood counts (CBC). Less...