Effect of silica on phospholipids in the rat lung.

Grunspan, M., Antweiler, H., and Dehnen, W. (1973). British Journal of Industrial Medicine, 30,74-77. Effect of silica on phospholipids in the rat lung. The total amount of phospholipids and the contents of sphingomyelin, phosphatidylcholine, phosphatidylserine, and phosphatidylethanolamine have been estimated in the lungs of rats from 2 to 90 days after intratracheal injections of quartz and corundum, respectively. A significant increase in the contents of lung total phospholipids and of all phospholipid fractions examined was caused by quartz. The first increase was noted 48 hours after quartz application; after 30 days the amount of phosphatidylcholine had increased to about 20-fold, whereas the other phospholipid fractions had reached only an amount two or three times as great as in the control animals. The increase observed was steady for up to 90 days at the end of these experiments. The increase in lung phospholipids was far less when corundum was injected into the lungs.