Chemometrics as a tool in the study of lead toxicity in rats

Abstract

In this work, chemometric tools were applied to establish correlations between biomarkers for identifying the most significant ones in relation to acute exposure of Wistar rats to Pb. The metal content in biological matrices (serum, urine, liver, brain, and kidney), biochemical parameters (protein content, activity of the Glutathione S-Transferase enzymes, and urinalysis), apart from morphological measurements of organisms, were estimated in both the exposed and the control groups and submitted to Significance tests, Principal Component Analysis, Hierarchical Cluster Analysis, and Generalized Procrustean Analysis. It could be observed that Pb in serum, but not in erythrocytes, was the biomarker associated with the Pb content in kidney and other parameters related to this organ. In the same way, Pearson correlation coefficients emphasized the relation between Pb in serum and these variables, with the exception of kidney weight. Additionally, Pb in serum was found to be the biomarker with the greatest difference between the control and the exposed groups, which converts it into the most sensitive biomarker in the present study.