Rebuttal to letter to the editor. Dr. Qin (Volume 51, 2008)
Dear Sir, We appreciate the recommendation in the recent letter of Dr. Qin (Volume 51, 2008) that 'the interaction between chemicals, gut microbiota, and the host would be a new area worthy of further exploration" This may be a currently neglected field, but it is not new. Dr. Qin's letter omits to mention any of the established history of the subject, including the pioneering studies by Dr. Ron Scheline, and research by the late Dr. R. Tecwyn Williams, who elucidated the major role of the 'gut microflora" in the metabolic intoxication and detoxication of many chemicals. The topic was reviewed (Williams, 1972; Scheline, 1973) and became the subject of a book published by a colleague at St. Mary's Hospital Medical School (Hill, 1995) Some early examples of intestinal bacterial metabolism were the reduction of the drug precursor Prontosil to the active antibacterial sulfanilamide (Gingell et al. 1971) and microbial hydrolysis of the synthetic sweetener cyclamate to the toxic cyclohexylamine (Drasar et al. 1972) Dr. Williams' legacy was the foundation of the modern field of xenobiotic metabolism (ISSX) which was derived from a vast body of work on the metabolism of xenobiotic chemicals and its influence on their toxicity and/or therapeutic action, and which is enshrined in his classic book Detoxication Mechanisms (Williams, 1959)
Regulatory toxicology and pharmacology RTP