Bioscavengers as a Pretreatment for Nerve Agent Exposure

摘要

The use a bioscavenger has emerged as a new approach to reduce the in vivo toxicity of chemical warfare nerve agents. As an improvement of over current treatment, a biological scavenger should have no or minimal behavioral or physiological side effects, should provide protection up to a 5 LD50 exposure and should be devoid of any behavioral or physiological side effects. Studies with equine or human butyrylcholinesterase or fetal bovine serum acetylcholinesterase showed that none of these scavengers exhibited behavioral side effects when given alone to rats or monkeys. Furthermore, each was capable of providing protection against 2 to 16 LD50s of GD, GB or VX depending on the scavenger and the test species. The results to date support the value of this approach as the next generation of pharmaceuticals to afford protection against nerve agent poisoning.