Lolium perenne L. spp. multiflorum (Lam.) Husnot (LOLMU) is a winter annual weed, common to row crops, orchards and roadsides. Glyphosate-resistant populations of LOLMU are widespread in California. In many situations, growers have switched to paraquat or other postemergence herbicides to manage glyphosate-resistant LOLMU populations. Recently, poor control of LOLMU with paraquat was reported i...

Background: Paraquat is a non-selective contact herbicide, widely used to control weeds in agriculture farms and aquatic plants in surface waters. Paraquat can have adverse effects on the health of aquatic organisms. The aim of this study was to detect the alterations in the blood biochemical parameters of common carp exposed to sub-lethal concentrations of commercial formulations of paraquat. ...

Paraquat is one of herbicides, known to have toxicity in animals and human. It has been reported that paraquat injures lungs and also induces abnormal differentiations in muscle cells. This suggests the possibility that paraquat perturbs the differentiation of muscle. In this study, we examined the effects of paraquat on the differentiation of C2C12 cells, mouse myoblast. In presence of paraqua...

Due to the structural similarity to N-methyl-4-phenyl pyridinium (MPP(+)), paraquat might induce dopaminergic toxicity in the brain. However, its blood--brain barrier (BBB) penetration has not been well documented. We studied the manner of BBB penetration and neural cell uptake of paraquat using a brain microdialysis technique with HPLC/UV detection in rats. After subcutaneous administration, p...

The purpose of this study was to investigate the hypothesis that paraquat pulmonary toxicity results from cyclic reduction-oxidation of paraquat with sequential generation of superoxide radicals and singlet oxygen and initiation of lipid peroxidation. In vitro mouse lung microsomes catalyzed an NADPH-dependent, single-electron reduction of paraquat. Incubation of paraquat with NADPH, NADPH-cyto...

Paraquat is one of the most widely used herbicides worldwide. In green plants, paraquat targets the chloroplast by transferring electrons from photosystem I to molecular oxygen to generate toxic reactive oxygen species, which efficiently induce membrane damage and cell death. A number of paraquat-resistant biotypes of weeds and Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) mutants have been identified. Th...

Paraquat is a pneumotoxin that causes lung injury by enhancing oxidative stress; however, the cellular responses to these redox events are undefined. We previously showed that paraquat produced selective peroxidation of phosphatidylserine that preceded apoptosis in 32D cells. We now report that the phospholipase A2(PLA2) inhibitor quinacrine can attenuate phosphatidylserine oxidation and also b...