Protective effect of L-carnitine against acrylamide-induced DNA damage in somatic and germ cells of mice

Recent findings of acrylamide (AA) in many common foods have sparked renewed interest in assessing human health hazards. AA was evaluated by the International Agency for Research on Cancer as probably carcinogenic to humans. For this reason, the aim of this study is to evaluate the potential genotoxic effect of AA using chromosomal aberration analysis and micronucleus (MN) test in mouse bone-marrow cells and morphological sperm abnormalities. The result of the present work indicated that treatment with a single dose of 10, 20, or 30 mg/kg b.wt. of AA for 24 h and the repeated dose of 10 mg/kg b.wt. for 1 and 2 weeks induced a statistically significant increase in the percentage of chromosomal aberrations and micronuclei in bone- marrow cells. These percentages reduced significantly in all groups treated with AA and the protective agent L-carnitine. Also the results indicated that the dose 10, 20 and 30 mg/kg b.wt. of AA induced a statistically significant percentage of morphological sperm abnormalities compared with the control group. Such effect reached its maximum (7.24 +/- 0.61) with the highest tested dose which reduced to (4.02 +/- 0.58) in the group treated with the same dose of AA and L-carnitine. In conclusion, the results confirm the protective role of LC against the mutagenicity of AA. (C) 2010 King Saud University. All rights reserved.