Bear!!!!
If you found ANY of this interesting and think pathophysiology and poisons are fun, then consider a career in medical toxicology!😎
Treatment is supportive. One experiment treatment would be glycerol monoacetate (which makes more acetylCoA to try and out compete the MFA-CoA). Interestingly, another available source of acetylCoA would be ethanol 🍻!!
When humans ingest SMFA they can experience vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain, cardiac toxicity, seizures, and death. SMFA in the United States was historically used as a cheap rodenticide but now it is currently only legal for use in toxic collars to kill coyotes
This is not good because you need the Krebs cycle to keep going and not be shut down so you can do things like attack sheep, eat honey mustard pretzels, and be alive!!!!
Your mitochondrial enzymes are very stupid (sorry) and they can’t tell the difference between your name brand acetyl-CoA and the fugly knock off brand MFA-CoA…. So MFA-CoA gets introduced into the krebs cycle…and the end result is that the whole cycle STOPS and shuts down
SMFA is a white powder that looks like flour or sugar. When ingested, SMFA gets converted into monofluoroacetyl-CoA (MFA-CoA). This looks a lot like acetyl-CoA, an important compound in the Krebs cycle.
Sodium monofluoroacetate (SMFA) is a VERY cool poison. If SMFA was a person at my high school they would be the super popular guy who had not only a wallet chain but also a tattoo (hi chris I’ll never forget u) SMFA works by messing with our evil nemesis the Krebs cycle
In order to protect against coyote attacks, some sheep are outfitted with special collars around their necks when the coyotes try to chomp the sheep’s neck, they will rip open the pouch on the collar and the coyote will ingest a deadly poison and die that poison is called SMFA
