Abstract
To evaluate an effect of cyclohexanone (CHO) treatment on the serum levels of glutathione S-transferase (GST) activity in acute liver damaged animals, acute liver damage was induced in rats with pretreatment of 50% $CCl_4$ in olive oil (0.1 ml/100 g body wt) intraperitoneally 14 times every other day. To liver damaged rats, CHO (1.56 g/kg body wt, i. p.) was injected once and then rats were sacrificed at 4 hours after injection of CHO. Increasing rate of GST activity to the control in serum was higher in CHO-treated rats pretreated with CCL$_4$ than the $CCl_4$-pretreated those. All the more, the injection of CHO to the liver damaged rats led to more enhanced liver damage on the basis of liver functional findings, i. e., serum levels of alanine aminotransferase (ALT) activity, liver weight per body weight, and malondialdehyde content. The changing pattern of serum ALT activity was similar with that of GST activity, whereas that of liver in both enzymes differed more or less from each other; the liver GST activity in CHO-treated rats pretreated with $CCl_4$ being more increased tendency than that of $CCl_4$-pretreated rats. Concomitantly the injection of CHO showed a increasing tendency of liver GST activity compared with the control. Furthermore, CHO injection to the liver damaged rats showed somewhat higher Vmax in the kinetics of liver GST enzymes. In conclusion, injection of CHO to the liver damaged animals led to more increased activity of serum GST, and it may be chiefly caused by the alteration of membrane permeability.