Coumatetralyl is an
anticoagulant
Anticoagulants, commonly known as blood thinners, are chemical substances that prevent or reduce coagulation of blood, prolonging the clotting time. Some of them occur naturally in blood-eating animals such as leeches and mosquitoes, where the ...
of the
4-hydroxycoumarin
4-Hydroxycoumarin is a coumarin derivative with a hydroxy group at the 4-position.
Occurrence
4-Hydroxycoumarin is an important fungal metabolite from the precursor coumarin, and its production leads to further fermentative production of the nat ...
vitamin K antagonist
Vitamin K antagonists (VKA) are a group of substances that reduce blood clotting by reducing the action of vitamin K. The term "vitamin K antagonist" is technically a misnomer, as the drugs do not directly antagonise the action of vitamin K in t ...
type used as a rodenticide.
Common applications
Coumatetralyl is commonly used with
grain
A grain is a small, hard, dry fruit (caryopsis) – with or without an attached hull layer – harvested for human or animal consumption. A grain crop is a grain-producing plant. The two main types of commercial grain crops are cereals and legum ...
s and other
cereal
A cereal is any Poaceae, grass cultivated for the edible components of its grain (botanically, a type of fruit called a caryopsis), composed of the endosperm, Cereal germ, germ, and bran. Cereal Grain, grain crops are grown in greater quantit ...
s as a rodent poison in conjunction with a
tracking powder to monitor feeding activity in a particular area. Tracking powder also clings to fur, which allows more poison to be ingested from grooming. Concentrations of the chemical are usually 500 mg per 1 kg of bait.
Toxicity
Symptoms of overexposure relate to failure of the
blood clotting
Coagulation, also known as clotting, is the process by which blood changes from a liquid to a gel, forming a blood clot. It potentially results in hemostasis, the cessation of blood loss from a damaged vessel, followed by repair. The mechanism o ...
mechanism and include bleeding gums and failure of blood clotting after skin wounds. After one exposure the
toxicity
Toxicity is the degree to which a chemical substance or a particular mixture of substances can damage an organism. Toxicity can refer to the effect on a whole organism, such as an animal, bacterium, or plant, as well as the effect on a subst ...
of coumatetralyl is relatively low; however, if overexposure continues for several days the product becomes more toxic. The product must therefore be constantly present in the bloodstream for more than one to two days in order to be highly toxic. A single exposure, even though relatively large, may not produce toxic symptoms as the compound is quite rapidly
metabolized
Metabolism (, from el, μεταβολή ''metabolē'', "change") is the set of life-sustaining chemical reactions in organisms. The three main functions of metabolism are: the conversion of the energy in food to energy available to run cell ...
.
Chronic animal studies show no evidence of
carcinogenic
A carcinogen is any substance, radionuclide, or radiation that promotes carcinogenesis (the formation of cancer). This may be due to the ability to damage the genome or to the disruption of cellular metabolic processes. Several radioactive substan ...
or
teratogenic
Teratology is the study of abnormalities of physiological development in organisms during their life span. It is a sub-discipline in medical genetics which focuses on the classification of congenital abnormalities in dysmorphology. The related t ...
effects.
Treatment
Vitamin K1 (phylloquinone) is antidotal.
See also
*
C19H16O3
References
{{coumarin
Anticoagulant rodenticides
Vitamin K antagonists
Tetralins
Coumarin drugs
Phenols
4-Hydroxycoumarins