Effects of erucic acid supplemented feeding on chronic doxorubucin toxicity in rats

Abstract

One of the undesired complications of the chemotherapy with doxorubicin is cardiotoxicity. Cardiac effect of erucic acid, which is a member of omega-9 fatty acid, is investigated on doxorubicin treatment in this study. Forty-eight rats were divided into eight groups and each group contained six rats. First group rats were fed with milk. In the third and fifth groups we fed rats with milk supplemented 0.5% and 5% erucic acid respectively. The groups 2, 4, 6 were fed as the groups 1, 3, 5 respectively; we injected 2 mg/kg twice weekly intraperitoneal doxorubicin to these groups whereas we injected isovolumous normal saline to the groups 1, 3, 5. Two other groups (groups 7 and 8) were fed with standard pellet. Group 8 received 2 mg/kg doxorubicin twice weekly; group 7 received normal saline. After 4 weeks hearts were isolated and mounted on a Langendorff apparatus perfused by modified Tyrode solution. Surviving rats were significantly less in erucic acid + doxorubicin groups at the end of the treatment period (p<0.05). No significant difference was found between groups for malondialdehyde, catalase, cytochrome c oxidase and isolated heart measurements. Concomitant application of erucic acid and doxorubicin showed profound toxicity.

Keywords: Erucic Acid; cardiolipin; cytochrome c oxidase; doxorubucin; isolated perfused rat heart.

Figure 1

Body weights of the animals are represented. Compared with pellet diet control group, body weights of milk diet control +doxo groups' body weight was significantly less beginning from week 1 (p<0.05) and %0.5 eru +doxo and %5 eru + doxo groups' beginning from week 2 (p<0.05).

Figure 2

Number of surviving rats in the treatment period. None of the rats died until 14^th day. Two, four and five rats survived in groups that were treated with 0.5% erucic acid and doxo, 5% erucic acid and doxo, and 5% erucic acid, respectively to the end of the experiment. None of rats died in other groups and data were not shown in the figure.