Acute kidney injury caused by the intraperitoneal injection of Bothrops jararaca venom in rats

Abstract

We examined the ability of Bothrops jararaca venom (12.5 mg/kg) injected intraperitoneally (i.p.) to cause acute kidney injury (AKI) in rats. Blood urea and creatinine (AKI biomarkers, in g dL⁻¹) were elevated after 2 h in venom-treated rats (urea: from 0.41 ± 0.1 to 0.7 ± 0.03; creatinine from 46.7 ± 3.1 to 85 ± 6.7; p < 0.05; n = 3 each), with no change in circulating reduced glutathione. Venom-treated rats survived for ∼6 h, at which point platelets were reduced (×10³ µL⁻¹; from 763.8 ± 30.2 to 52.5 ± 18.2) whereas leukocytes and erythrocytes were slightly increased (from 4.7 ± 0.3 to 6.6 ± 0.1 × 10³ µL⁻¹ and from 8.38 ± 0.1 to 9.2 ± 0.09 × 10⁶ µL⁻¹, respectively; p < 0.05); blood protein (5.2 ± 0.4 g dL⁻¹) and albumin (2.7 ± 0.1 g dL⁻¹) were normal, whereas blood and urinary urea and creatinine were increased. All parameters returned to normal with antivenom given 2 h post-envenomation. The i.p. injection of venom caused AKI similar to that seen with other routes of administration.

Graphical Abstract

Keywords:

• Acute kidney injury
• blood incoagulability
• Bothrops jararaca

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Prosup/Capes and PPGCF/Uniso for providing postgraduate scholarships. This work was supported by Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP, grant nos. 15/01420-9 and 16/12599-2) and Financiadora de Estudos e Pesquisa (FINEP, grant no. 07/2010).

Disclosure statement

The authors have no conflicts of interest with this work.