The reporter learned from the Health Department of Heilongjiang Province on the 22nd that a scientific research project recently completed by experts from the Heilongjiang Provincial Center for Disease Control has systematically revealed for the first time at home and abroad the pathogenesis, pathological features and conditions of kidney crystal formation in melamine-induced kidney injury. . The results provide an important scientific basis for the relevant departments to assess the risk of melamine and to establish safety management limits for melamine in food and feed. This achievement has recently won the first prize of Heilongjiang Province Medical and Health Science and Technology Progress Award in 2009.

Because melamine is not a food additive, there is little research on the toxicity of melamine at home and abroad. There is also a lack of in-depth discussion on the dose-effect relationship of melamine-induced kidney damage and the key links of crystal and kidney pathological damage. According to this, Wang Yuyan, the chief physician of the Toxicology Institute of the Heilongjiang Provincial Center for Disease Control, successfully established the animal model of melamine crystal formation in the kidney for the first time, recreating the pathological process of this disease. The model method is scientific and advanced and reproducible. The results revealed that the kidney is the target organ of melamine toxicity. The mechanism is that melamine is catalyzed by gastric acid in the stomach to form cyanuric acid. The two combine to form melamine-cyanuric acid in the kidney, and the crystal is filled with renal tubules, which increases the volume and weight of the kidney. The squeezing of the wall causes severe ischemia of the kidney tissue, resulting in a characteristic khaki-like appearance of the kidney.

Observations also showed that melamine crystals can also lead to pathological changes such as renal inflammation and fibrous tissue hyperplasia, further triggering metabolic dysfunction of the kidney, increasing the levels of blood urea nitrogen and creatinine, and ultimately causing renal failure in experimental animals. In the research, Wang Yuyan et al. first determined the crystal formed in the kidney by the X-ray diffraction method as the crystal of melamine-cyanuric acid, and confirmed that the intake of melamine can form melamine-cyanuric acid in the kidney. Significant innovation.

Experts pointed out that this topic fills the gap in melamine toxicology research in China and is of great significance to basic medicine, pharmacy and clinical medicine.