Abstract
To investigate the effects of sanguinarine (SAN) on acute radiation induced injury in mice, 45 mice were randomly divided into control, 10 Gy and SAN+10 Gy groups. Mice in the 10 Gy and SAN+10 Gy groups were exposed to single X-ray radiation with an accumulated dose of 10 Gy. Mice in the SAN+10 Gy group were administered intraperitoneally with 2.5 mg/kg body weight of SAN before radiation. Five days after radiation exposure, 5 mice from each group were sacrificed and samples of the small intestine, lung, spleen and liver were fixed for histopathological examinations. Compared with the 10 Gy group, radiation sickness was obviously delayed or attenuated in the SAN+10 Gy group. Survival analysis showed a significant difference between 2 radiation groups (P<0.05) and mean survival time was 3 days longer in the SAN+10 Gy group than in the 10 Gy group (7.21±0.19 vs. 4.20±0.13, P<0.001). Radiation-induced organ damage, based on histopathological examinations, was decreased by SAN pretreatment. Chiu’s pathology grading scores, which is an index of intestinal damage, was significantly lower in the SAN+10 Gy group than in the 10 Gy group (2.77±0.48 vs. 4.37±0.31, P<0.01). A similar result was obtained in the pathological score of lung (1.67±0.21 vs. 2.33±0.38, P<0.01). Our preliminary findings demonstrated that SAN protects animals against radiation-induced sickness and acute damage to organs and following animal death.
Highlights
Applications of ionizing radiation are rapidly increasing and the deleterious effect of human exposure is attracting increasing attention from researchers and the general public
Small intestinal tissues of mice in the 10 Gy group showed the destruction of villi structure and denudation of epithelium surfaces
Chiu’s pathology grading scores were 0.06±0.06 in the control group and this score remarkably increased in both radiation groups, with significantly lower score in SAN+10 Gy group than in 10
Summary
Applications of ionizing radiation are rapidly increasing and the deleterious effect of human exposure is attracting increasing attention from researchers and the general public. Several drugs of synthetic and natural origin are found to mitigate injury caused by whole exposure in experimental models and human clinical trials. These radioprotective compounds include ethyl phosphorothioic acid (amifostine), vitamin E, vitamin C, carotenoids, plant polyphenols and aminothiol (Hosseinimehr, 2007). Previous studies have indicated that SAN inhibits the growth of cancer cells at micromolar concentration. A reasonable hypothesis was first put forward to evaluate protective effects of SAN on radiation injury. We observed radiation sickness incidence, survival rates and organ histopathological changes after an acute whole body exposure of X-ray radiation in Balb/c mice
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