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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).
Toxicokinetic profiles can change with increasing exposure duration or dose. Real world environmental exposures generally occur as low level mixtures, such as from air, water, food, or tobacco products. Mixture effects may differ from individual chemical toxicokinetic profiles because of chemical interactions, synergistic, or competitive processes.
On-target toxicity is also referred to as mechanism-based toxicity. This type of adverse effect that results from pharmaceutical drug exposure is commonly due to interactions of the drug with its intended target. In this case, both the therapeutic and toxic targets are the same.
A toxicologist working in a lab (United States, 2008)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 therapeutic index (TI; also referred to as therapeutic ratio) is a quantitative measurement of the relative safety of a drug with regard to risk of overdose.It is a comparison of the amount of a therapeutic agent that causes toxicity to the amount that causes the therapeutic effect. [1]
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.
The Amanita muscaria mushroom, an iconic toxic mushroom. A toxin is a naturally occurring 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] derived from toxic.
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.