Investigation of antioxidant effect of zinc biochemically and histopathologically in rats

Abstract

In this study, biochemically (Total anti oxidant capacity (TAC), Alanin aminotransferaz (ALT) ve Aspartat aminotransferaz (AST)) and histopathologically effects investigated in CCl4 - treated rats and the effects of intraperitoneal zinc administration on these parameters. Cirrhosis was induced in 40 rats by intraperitoneal injections of CCl4 twice a week over 6 weeks. Forty and ten additional animals were used as controls. Both groups were further subdivided to receive standard diet. TAC, ALT and AST were also worked out. Masson's trichrome stain was applied to evaluate the fibrosis in liver. The results were evaluated by means of Student-t and Mann Whitney U tests in SPSS 6.0. TAC in plasma was significantly different into experimental goups (P <0.05). Value of TAC was lower in B group than in C and D groups (P <0.05), however differences between control and A, C, D groups was not important (P> 0.05). It is found out that the TAC in the groups which treated with CCl4 + ZnSO4 were higher than the groups those treated with only CCl4. This finding support that zinc plays an important role in regeneration of the damaged cells and antioxidant defense mechanism. Moreover, the histopatologic findings of our study were revealed this hypothesis. © 2005 Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.