Effects of Paclitaxel on Lipid Peroxidation and Antioxidant Enzymes in Tissues of Mice Bearing Ehrlich Solid Tumor

Abstract

Objectives: Cancer is the second most common cause of death in the world. Several chemotherapeutic drugs havebeen studied for their anticancer features. Paclitaxel is one of these chemotherapeutic drugs with high medicinal interest.This study was conducted in order to investigate effects of paclitaxel on lipid peroxidation and antioxidant enzymesin tissues of mice bearing solid-form Ehrlich tumors.Methods: In this study, 36 Balb/C male mice aged 8-10 weeks and weighing 25-30 g were used. Six mice were kept ascancer stock to produce Ehrlich Ascites Tumor (EAT) cells. Thirty mice were distributed into three groups as healthy control,tumor control and paclitaxel treatment. 0.1 ml physiologic saline solution was administered into mice in healthycontrol subcutaneously (s.c.) for 15 days. The animals in tumor control and Paclitaxel treatment groups received 1x106EAT cells s.c. through nape skin on the first day of the experiment. After the application of EAT cells, 10 mg/kg Paclitaxelwas injected intraperitoneally on days 4, 9 and 14. At the end of the study (on day 15), animals were sacrificed and liver,kidney, brain and testis tissues were excised and analyzed for Malondialdehyde (MDA), by using TBARS method, superoxidedismutase (SOD) and catalase (CAT) activities spectrophotometrically.Results: Compared to the results of healthy control group, tumor increased kidney and liver MDA levels developmentslightly but not significantly. Paclitaxel treatment significantly reduced the increased MDA levels in kidney and liver(p<0.001). Paclitaxel had no effect on testis MDA but brain MDA level reduced with the help of EAT cell injection andPaclitaxel returned the brain MDA level close to the level of healthy control (p<0.001). EAT cell injection reduced catalaseactivity in kidney and liver (p<0.001) and Paclitaxel had no effect on catalase activities in these tissues. In EAT cellinjected mice; testis and brain catalase activities were higher than that of healthy control group that were returned tocontrol levels by Paclitaxel treatment. Paclitaxel had no significant effect on decreased kidney and liver SOD activitieswhereas it significantly reduced the increased SOD activities in testis (p<0.05) and in brain (p<0.01).Conclusion: Paclitaxel alleviated the lipid peroxidation in kidney and liver but had no effect on antioxidant status inthese tissues of solid-Ehrlich tumor-bearing mice.