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Toxicant. A toxicant is any toxic substance, whether artificial or naturally occurring. [1] By contrast, a toxin is a poison produced naturally by an organism (e.g. plant, animal, insect). [2] The different types of toxicants [3] can be found in the air, soil, water, or food. [4]
Toxicology. Toxicology is a scientific discipline, overlapping with biology, chemistry, pharmacology, and medicine, that involves the study of the adverse effects of chemical substances on living organisms [1] and the practice of diagnosing and treating exposures to toxins and toxicants. The relationship between dose and its effects on the ...
Toxicology testing, also known as safety assessment, or toxicity testing, is the process of determining the degree to which a substance of interest negatively impacts the normal biological functions of an organism, given a certain exposure duration, route of exposure, and substance concentration. [1]
A toxin is a naturally occurring organic [dubious – discuss] poison [1] produced by metabolic activities of living cells or organisms. [2] They occur especially as proteins, often conjugated. [3] The term was first used by organic chemist Ludwig Brieger (1849–1919) [4] and is derived from the word "toxic".
Toxicity is the degree to which a chemical substance or a particular mixture of substances can damage an organism. [1] Toxicity can refer to the effect on a whole organism, such as an animal, bacterium, or plant, as well as the effect on a substructure of the organism, such as a cell ( cytotoxicity) or an organ such as the liver ( hepatotoxicity ).
A mode of toxic action is a common set of physiological and behavioral signs that characterize a type of adverse biological response. [1] A mode of action should not be confused with mechanism of action, which refer to the biochemical processes underlying a given mode of action. [2] Modes of toxic action are important, widely used tools in ...
Toxicodynamics, termed pharmacodynamics in pharmacology, describes the dynamic interactions of a toxicant with a biological target and its biological effects. [1] A biological target, also known as the site of action, can be binding proteins, ion channels, DNA, or a variety of other receptors. When a toxicant enters an organism, it can interact ...
Acute toxicity is distinguished from chronic toxicity, which describes the adverse health effects from repeated exposures, often at lower levels, to a substance over a longer time period (months or years). It is widely considered unethical to use humans as test subjects for acute (or chronic) toxicity research.