Long-Term Oral Administration of Capsicum baccatum Extracts Does Not Alter Behavioral, Hematological, and Metabolic Parameters in CF1 Mice

Abstract

Our group showed that crude ethanol (CE) and butanol (BUT) extracts of Capsicum baccatum presented anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties. Furthermore, the flavonoid and total phenolic contents were positively correlated with both of these properties observed for C. baccatum extracts. The present study demonstrated that 60 days of oral administration of CE and BUT (200 mg/kg) in mice did not cause significant differences in the following parameters evaluated: hematological profile, body weight and relative weight of visceral organs, systemic lipid profile, glucose homeostasis (GTT), kidney and hepatic biochemical markers, and spontaneous locomotion and anxiety-like behavior. Altogether, these results indicate for the first time that the long-term oral administration of C. baccatum extracts does not affect specific aspects of CF1 mice physiology, suggesting their safety, building up the venue to test their efficacy in animal models underlying persistent activation of oxidative and inflammatory pathways.

Figure 1

HPLC chromatograms of CE and BUT extracts of C. baccatum: (a) detection at 280 nm to capsaicin (Rt = 14.20 min); (b) detection at 254 nm to rutin and quercetin (Rt: 5.80 and 9.26 min, resp.). CE: crude ethanol extract; BUT: butanol extract.

Figure 2

Open field task performed after sixty days of oral administration of C. baccatum extracts (200 mg/kg). Total distance travelled (a), mean speed (b), time spent in the central zone (c), and the distance travelled in the central zone of the apparatus (d). Representative occupancy plots obtained by video-tracking software (ANY-mazeH, Stoelting, CO, USA) (e). The results are presented as the mean ± SEM (n = 10) using one-way ANOVA. No significant differences were observed among groups.

Figure 3

Elevated plus-maze task performed after the administration of C. baccatum extracts (200 mg/kg). Mean speed (a), total travelled distance (b), time spent in the open arms (c), time spent in the closed arms (d), number of entries into the closed arms (e), and the number of entries into the open arms (f). Representative occupancy plots obtained by video-tracking software (ANY-mazeH, Stoelting, CO, USA) (g). The results are presented as mean ± SEM (n = 10) after analysis by one-way ANOVA. No significant differences were observed among the groups.

Figure 4

Growth curves of CF1 mice orally treated with C. baccatum extracts (200 mg/kg) during sixty days. No significant differences were observed among the groups.

Figure 5

Glucose tolerance test: mice fasted for 8 h received glucose (2 mg/g of body weight, i.p.). Blood samples from the tail vein were taken at 0, 30, 60, and 120 min. Repeated measures of analysis of variance (ANOVA) were used to evaluate the statistical significance. The results are expressed as mean ± SEM No significant difference was observed among groups (P > 0.05).