Interdisciplinary Toxicology

Ammi visnaga (Av) is a source of khellin where a tea made from the fruit of this plant was used as herbal medicine for kidney stones in Egypt. In the present research, the acute and subacute toxicity studies with oral intake of 150, 300 and 600 mg/kg of Av seed ethanolic extract in rats were done. In acute toxicity test, 4 groups of rats (n = 6/group: 3 males and 3 females) were chosen and the first control group received tap water, while the other three groups received Av seed ethanolic extract dissolved in tap water at doses of 150, 300, and 600 mg/kg, and general behavior, adverse effects, and mortality were recorded for up to 14 days...

Agriculture is an important occupation in Malaysia that generates a major portion of the national revenue. Similar to the rest of the world, pesticides are used to boost agricultural production in Malaysian farms. However, chemical pesticides are associated with human health hazard and are not environment-friendly as they persist in nature for long periods of time. Therefore, pesticide use should be reduced and farmers should be trained on correct and/or alternative ways of pesticide use. In this cross-sectional study, we surveyed 19 palm oil plantations in the Sabah district of Malaysia and evaluated the perception of the workers towards pesticide use and awareness regarding the health effects post-pesticide exposure...

Rosuvastatin, a second generation 3-Hydroxy-3-Methyl Glutaryl Coenzyme-A reductase inhibitor, is widely used for the management of hypercholesterolemia. Rosuvastatin ethanolamine, developed by Cadila Healthcare Ltd., is a novel, chemically stable, and pharmaceutically acceptable salt, having better physiochemical properties than commercially available Rosuvastatin salt. The objective of the present study is to evaluate safety, tolerability, and toxicokinetic profile of novel salt. Therefore, four weeks repeated dose oral (gavage) toxicity and toxicokinetic study of Rosuvastatin ethanolamine was carried out...

Placenta, the organ on which great attention is concentrated during pregnancy, represents an ineffective barrier to the transfer of hazardous heavy metals, mainly lead, into the foetus. The presence of lead in the placenta is an environmental hazard for a person's future. Due to hormonal changes, lead is released during pregnancy into the bloodstream of the mother from deposits in the bones and in the teeth, where it has accumulated for years as a result of a contaminated environment. Since lead is a neurotoxic metal, exposure to lead during prenatal and postnatal development can cause serious neurocognitive damage and hence the development of an Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in a developing human...

It is known that thiamine deficiency may lead to Alzheimer's diseases in humans. The present study has thus been conducted to understand the role of thiamine deficiency with respect to alteration in the peripheral blood of Swiss albino mice. For this purpose, adult Swiss albino mice (6-8 week old) were divided into three groups. The first group was control; the second (group II) and the third group (group III) were made thiamine deficient for 08 and 10 days respectively. Thiamine deficiency was induced in mice by injecting pyrithiamine (5 µg/10 g bwt) and feeding a thiamine deficient diet...

Melamine-ware is widely used around the world. There is a public health concern as regards the safety of melamine when exposed to food. This study was carried out to measure the level of melamine migration in melamine-ware products by HPLC method and the effect of food-type on the level of melamine migration. In food control laboratories in Iran, there is no common method to measure and monitor melamine migration, hence a method using HPLC technique was adopted and validated to solve this problem. The validation results showed the reliability with 94...

Nickel is a potential neurotoxic pollutant inflicting damage in living organisms, including fish, mainly through oxidative stress. Previous studies have demonstrated the impact of nickel toxicity on mitochondrial function, but there remain lacunae on the damage inflicted at mitochondrial respiratory level. Deficient mitochondrial function usually affects the activities of important adenosinetriphosphatases responsible for the maintenance of normal neuronal function, namely Na+ K+ ATPase, as explored in our study...

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) consist of a range of toxic substances which are directly proportional to carcinogenesis and tumor-promoting factors as well as having neurotoxic properties. Reactive oxygen species, which are produced from PCBs, alter blood-brain barrier (BBB) integrity, which is paralleled by cytoskeletal rearrangements and redistribution and disappearance of tight junction proteins (TJPs) like claudin-5 and occludin. Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), plays an important role in the maintenance, survival of neurons and synaptic plasticity...

Nanoparticles are utilized in a wide range of industries. The most studied silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) are used in medicine and also in several wound dressings due to their antimicrobial properties. The inflammatory response or potential morphological changes of skin cells after their application are not well known yet. In our study we used the model of human reconstructed epidermis (RHE), prepared in our laboratory, to evaluate whether the AgNPs penetrate through RHE, induce some morphological changes of keratinocytes or influence the production of pro-inflammatory cytokines (IL-6 and IL-8)...

The present research was carried out to study the effect of 2β-hydroxybetulinic acid 3β-oleiate (HBAO), a novel compound isolated from the seeds of Euryale ferox salisb. on glycemic control, antioxidant status and histopathological morphological alterations in the liver, pancreas, kidney and heart in streptozotocin induced type-2 diabetes in rats. HBAO was isolated from the seeds of Euryale ferox salisb. according to Lee. Isolation of the active principle HBAO was performed for the first time. To date there are no reports on the isolation and evaluation of 2β-hydroxybetulinic acid 3β-oleiate (HBAO) from Euryale ferox salisb...

Cyanobacteria are the rich resource of various secondary metabolites including toxins with broad pharmaceutical significance. The aim of this work was to evaluate the antiproliferative, neurotoxic, genotoxic and mutagenic effects of cyanobacterial extracts containing Microcystin-LR (MCLR) in vitro . ELISA analysis results showed that MCLR contents of five cyanobacterial extracts were 2.07 ng/mL, 1.43 ng/mL, 1.41 ng/mL, 1.27 ng/mL, and 1.12 ng/mL for Leptolyngbya sp. SB1, Phormidium sp. SB4, Oscillatoria earlei SB5, Phormidium sp...

Mechlorethamine (HN2) is an alkylating agent and sulfur mustard gas mimetic which is also used in anticancer therapy. HN2 is associated with skin inflammation and blistering which can lead to secondary infections. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the time-dependent dermatotoxicity of HN2 using the mouse ear vesicant model (MEVM). To this end, our operational definition of dermatotoxicity included tissue responses to HN2 consistent with an increase in the wet weights of mouse ear punch biopsies, an increase in the morphometric thickness of H&E stained ear sections and histopathologic observations including tissue edema, inflammatory cell infiltration and vesication...

Mercury is a heavy metal of considerable toxicity. Scientific literature reveals various plants and plant derived natural products, i.e. , phytochemicals, which can alleviate experimentally induced mercury toxicity in animals. The present review attempts to collate those experimental studies on medicinal plants and phytochemicals with ameliorative effects on mercury toxicity. A literature survey was carried out by using Google, Scholar Google, Scopus and Pub-Med. Only the scientific journal articles found in the internet for the last two decades (1998-2018) were considered...

Zika virus (ZIKV) belongs to the group of viruses called arboviruses. Congenital Zika syndrome is a new disease with infectious teratogenic aetiology. The clinical symptoms are divided into morphological and functional. Most severe complication is the foetal brain disruption sequence that includes severe microcephaly, anomalies of the eyes and congenital contractions of joints. The aim of this paper was to review available facts about Zika virus infection from a newborn point of view in a form of the summary of all important information...

Soybeans contain the isoflavone aglycone, an endocrine disrupter. To determine the effects of small amounts of isoflavones on developmental processes, we administered 6.25, 62.5, or 625 μg isoflavone per egg to early stage (stage 10) developing chick embryos via the yolk just beneath the embryo. Eggs were kept at 37±0.5 °C and >80% relative humidity, with one rotation per hour for 48 hrs. The embryos were observed under a stereomicroscope for morphological abnormalities and number of somites. Relative to control eggs, there were no significant differences in the average number of somites in eggs administered isoflavone aglycone...

The objective of the present study was to evaluate the safety of long term consumption of ethanolic fraction of Neurocalyx calycinus leaves (NCEF) in rodents. The NCEF was subjected to detect the presence of various phytoconstituents. In acute oral toxicity study, graded doses of NCEF was administered in mice and were observed up to 14 days. In sub-chronic oral toxicity study, NCEF was administered to Wistar rats at doses of 50, 500 and 1000 mg/kg b.w. per day for 90 days and after that, observed up to 28 days...

Handling is a form of experience which can result in physiological changes depending on the period of postnatal age when performed. There is a lot of evidence about the positive effect of neonatal handling, but a lack dealing with handling of adult rats. Behavioral changes and memory deficits are present in dementia-like disorders. In the present work, we tested whether 6 weeks lasting handling of young adult rats could revert memory impairment induced by trimethyltin (TMT) (7.5 mg/kg, intraperitoneally). Testing rats in Morris water maze revealed significant effect of TMT as well significant effect of handling...

Bisphenol A is widely used as a material for the production of epoxy resins and polycarbonate plastics. It contaminates various food stuffs by getting leached out from their container lining. Limited information is available on its effects on the male reproductive system. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the extent to which bisphenol A can affect the reproductive system by measuring biochemical and histological changes in the epididymis. Inbred Swiss strain male albino mice were orally administered 80, 120 and 240 mg/kg body weight/day of BPA for 45 days...

The aim of the research was to determine some basic biological activities of less biomedically studied but commonly known two fungi from the Boletaceae family Suillellus rubrosanguineus and Tylopilus felleus , which grow in the forests of Middle Europe. The cytotoxicity tests of the ethanol and chloroform extracts were carried out using NIH-3T3 and MCF-7 cell lines. The presence of alkaloids in the extracts was assessed by the reaction with Dragendorff reagent. In all of the extracts the positive reaction with the reagent was observed...

Mustard oil cake is a biofertilizer widely used in agriculture and fish cultivation almost in all South East Asian Countries including India. The study was carried out to observe the effects of this biofertilizer on the liver proteins of Channa punctatus . At sublethal concentration (0.42 g/L ), fishes were exposed for a prolonged period of 35 days and amount of total liver protein (TLP) was measured. The investigation showed a low rate of liver protein synthesis in treated fish after 4 days of exposure. An increase in the amount of protein was observed between the 7th and 35th day...