The toxicokinetics cell demography model to explain metal kinetics in terrestrial invertebrates.

Metal toxicokinetics in invertebrates are usually described by one-compartment first-order kinetic model. Although the model gives an adequate description of the toxicokinetics in certain cases, it has been shown to fail in some situations. It also does not seem acceptable on purely theoretical grounds as accumulation and excretion rates may change depending on instantaneous toxicant concentration in the gut. We postulate that the mechanism behind such changes is connected with the toxic effect of metals on gut epithelial cells. Based on published data, we have constructed a mechanistic model assuming a dynamic rate of replacement of epithelial cells with increasing contamination. We use a population-type modeling, with a population of gut epithelial cells characterized by specific death and birth rates, which may change depending on the metal concentration in food. The model shows that the equilibrium concentration of a toxicant in an organism is the net result of gut cell death and replacement rates. At low constant toxicant concentrations in food, the model predicts that toxicant-driven cell mortality is moderate and the total amount of toxicant in the intestine increases slowly up to the level resulting from the gradual increase of the cell replacement rate. At high constant concentration, total toxicant amount in the gut increases very fast, what is accompanied by massive cell death. The increased cell death rate results in reduced toxicant absorption, which in turn brings its body load down. The resulting pattern of toxicokinetic trajectory for high metal concentration closely resemble that found in empirical studies, indicating that the model probably describes the actual phenomenon.