Disulfiram moderately restores impaired hepatic redox status of rats subchronically exposed to cadmium

Abstract

Examination of cadmium (Cd) toxicity and disulfiram (DSF) effect on liver was focused on oxidative stress (OS), bioelements status, morphological and functional changes. Male Wistar rats were intraperitoneally treated with 1 mg CdCl₂/kg BW/day; orally with 178.5 mg DSF/kg BW/day for 1, 3, 10 and 21 days; and co-exposed from 22nd to 42nd day. The co-exposure nearly restored previously suppressed total superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT) and increased glutathione peroxidase (GPx) activities; increased previously reduced glutathione reductase (GR) and total glutathione-S-transferase (GST) activities; reduced previously increased superoxide anion radical (O₂^·−) and malondialdehyde (MDA) levels; increased zinc (Zn) and iron (Fe), and decreased copper (Cu) (yet above control value), while magnesium (Mg) was not affected; and decreased serum alanine aminotransferases (ALT) levels. Histopathological examination showed signs of inflammation process as previously demonstrated by exposure to Cd. Overall, we ascertained partial liver redox status improvement, compared with the formerly Cd-induced impact.

Graphical Abstract

Keywords:

• Cadmium
• disulfiram
• oxidative stress
• essential metals
• hepatotoxicity

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by Grants from the Ministry of Education and Science, Republic of Serbia (Project No.: III 41018) and by the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Serbia (Projects No.: MFVMA/3/13–15, MFVMA/6/12–15). We are grateful to Dusan Djukic and Nikola Djukanovic, graduate students of School of medicine at University of Belgrade, for the help regarding histopathological examination of liver. We acknowledge anonymous referees for the contributive criticism.

Ethics in publishing

This manuscript is prepared according to Ethics in publishing and Ethical guidelines for journal publication. Plagiarism, duplicate submission, conflict of interest, authorship disputes, salami slicing and/or all other possible scenarios of research frauds are excluded.

Ethics committee approval

The authors have complied with the institutional policies governing the humane and ethical treatment of the experimental subjects, and are willing to share the original data and materials if so requested. The experimental animals were treated according to Guidelines for Animal Study, No. 282-12/2002 (Ethics Committee of the Military Medical Academy, Belgrade, Serbia and Montenegro).

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest.

Additional information

Funding

This work was financially supported by Grants from the Ministry of Education and Science, Republic of Serbia, Projects No. III 41018, III 41008 and 173056; Ministry of Defence of the Republic of Serbia, Projects No. MFVMA/3/13-15, MFVMA/6/12-15.