Effects of quercetin on kidney injury induced by doxorubicin.

OBJECTIVES: The anthracycline antitumor drug doxorubicine causes severe nephrotoxicity in a variety of experimental animals and may be nephrotoxic to humans. The aim of present study was to determine the protective effects of quercetin against doxorubicin-induced kidney injury with light microscopy. METHODS: Forty male Wistar albino rats were divided into four groups: control, doxorubicin, doxorubicin+quercetin and quercetin. A single dose of 20 mg/kg/ i.p. doxorubicin was used to induce injury. Quercetin was administrated orally against doxorubicin toxicity. The kidneys were examined under light microscopy after H-E (hematoxylin-eosin) staining and the changes were scored. RESULTS: Significant tissue injury was observed in doxorubicin-administered group. Among these injuries, renal tubular dilatation, tubular vacuolar changes, glomerular vacuolization, decrease in bowman space, bowman capsule thickening, and interstitial infiltration were evident. However, the injury induced by doxorubicin was attenuated with quercetin administration. DISCUSSION: Quercetin decreased doxorubicin-induced kidney damage (Tab. 1, Fig. 4, Ref. 27).

Effects of quercetin and fish n-3 fatty acids on testicular injury induced by ethanol in rats.

The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of quercetin and fish n-3 fatty acids on the changes in testis induced by ethanol. Forty-five rats divided into five groups, control, ethanol, ethanol+quercetin, ethanol+fish n-3 fatty acids and ethanol+quercetin+fish n-3 fatty acids. At the end of 8 weeks, all the rats were sacrificed. Degenerative changes in histopathological analyses, the decreased body weight gain and seminiferous tubule diameters in ethanol group have been observed. TUNEL assay also showed an increase in apoptotic cell number. The activities of superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT), glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px), xanthine oxidase (XO) and testosterone levels were decreased as well as the levels of malondialdehyde (MDA) and nitric oxide (NO) were increased in ethanol group. Histopathological changes caused by ethanol have been improved by quercetin and fish n-3 fatty acids. It was also found that protection was provided by increasing SOD, CAT and GSH-Px activities in groups administered quercetin, fish n-3 fatty acids and quercetin+fish n-3 fatty acids, and by decreasing the levels of MDA and NO in groups administered both quercetin and fish n-3 fatty acids together. These results suggest that quercetin and fish n-3 fatty acids are beneficial agents to reduce testicular injury induced by ethanol except for testosterone levels.

The effect of caffeic acid phenethyl ester on ischemia-reperfusion injury in comparison with alpha-tocopherol in rat kidneys.

Oxygen-derived free radicals have been implicated in the pathogenesis of renal injury after ischemia-reperfusion. Caffeic acid phenethyl ester (CAPE), an active component of propolis extract, exhibits antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. To determine whether CAPE offers any advantage over alpha-tocopherol, we compared their effects on an in vivo model of renal ischemia-reperfusion injury in rats. CAPE at 10 micromol/kg or alpha-tocopherol at 10 mg/kg was administered intraperitoneally before reperfusion. Acute administration of CAPE suppressed ischemia-reperfusion induced renal lipid peroxidation and tissue injury more than alpha-tocopherol. CAPE may therefore offer a therapeutic advantage in acute injury settings.