Abstract
IN Australia chronic liver disease, with sometimes a high death rate, has occurred in flocks of sheep which have grazed pastures containing the summer-growing annual plant, Heliotropium europaeum L., for two or more consecutive seasons. Pyrrolizidine alkaloids have been isolated from the plant and their structures determined1,2. The plant may contain up to 3 per cent of alkaloid, mostly as N-oxides3. We have studied the disease in grazing sheep4–6 and by administration of the purified individual alkaloids to rats7–9, and we have defined the essential pathology as an atrophic hepatosis with megalocytosis of the parenchyma cells.
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References
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DICK, A., DANN, A., BULL, L. et al. Vitamin B12 and the Detoxification of Hepatotoxic Pyrrolizidine Alkaloids in Rumen Liquor. Nature 197, 207–208 (1963). https://doi.org/10.1038/197207a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/197207a0
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