Pediatric Toxicology: An Updated Review.

Pediatricians should be familiar with principles of medical toxicology given that intentional and unintentional ingestions are commonly encountered in different medical settings. Most exploratory ingestions are well tolerated and do not cause significant health effects, but a few noteworthy exceptions can lead to serious illness and death. This article reviews common medications and household products likely to cause significant toxicity in pediatric patients, even in small, exploratory ingestions.

Rising incidence and high mortality in intentional sodium nitrite exposures reported to US poison centers.

Introduction: Sodium nitrite is an oxidizing agent capable of producing profound methemoglobinemia. Large quantities of sodium nitrite can be purchased online, and recent literature has identified several cases of intentional self-poisoning, including multiple cases of mortality. This has raised concern that intentional sodium nitrite poisoning and resultant severe methemoglobinemia may be increasing in incidence and could represent a substantial public health threat.

Molecular and organismal changes in offspring of male mice treated with chemical stressors.

Both gene methylation changes and genetic instability have been noted in offspring of male rodents exposed to radiation or chemicals, but few specific gene targets have been established. Previously, we identified the gene for ribosomal RNA, rDNA, as showing methylation change in sperm of mice treated with the preconceptional carcinogen, chromium(III) chloride. rDNA is a critical cell growth regulator.

Ontogeny-driven rDNA rearrangement, methylation, and transcription, and paternal influence.

Gene rearrangement occurs during development in some cell types and this genome dynamics is modulated by intrinsic and extrinsic factors, including growth stimulants and nutrients. This raises a possibility that such structural change in the genome and its subsequent epigenetic modifications may also take place during mammalian ontogeny, a process undergoing finely orchestrated cell division and differentiation. We tested this hypothesis by comparing single nucleotide polymorphism-defined haplotype frequencies and DNA methylation of the rDNA multicopy gene between two mouse ontogenic stages and among three adult tissues of individual mice.