Hepatic effects of phenobarbitone in female mice fed sublethal levels of dietary cyanide

Female albino mice were fed sublethal doses of KCN (approx. 10 micrograms/mouse/day) for 7 days, injected intraperitoneally with phenobarbitone (50 mg/kg body wt/day) in the subsequent 3 days, and sacrificed 24 hr after the last injection. Phenobarbitone sleeping time was increasingly shortened (16-27%) daily in cyanide-fed mice in comparison with cyanide-free controls. Both compounds administered singly or simultaneously increased the liver weight/body weight ratios by not more than 10%. Aniline hydroxylase, glucose-6-phosphatase, NADPH- and NADH-cytochrome c reductase activities were similarly increased. Aniline hydroxylase activity was most markedly increased (by a factor of 4). The toxicological implications of these results are discussed.