Effect of ellagic acid on damage caused by hepatic ischemia reperfusion in rats

OBJECTIVE: Ischemia (I) caus-es lack of oxygen delivery to the tissues, lead-ing to hypoxia and cellular damage. Reperfu-sion (R) is the re-blooded of the tissue; howev-er, it may cause more tissue damage than isch-emia alone in some cases. During IR, number of free radicals and metabolic by-products in-creases. To prevent this, cellular antioxidant system is activated but it may not be enough to restore the cellular activities. The aim of this study was to investigate the potential protective effect of Ellagic Acid on damage caused by he-patic IR in rats. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Thirty rats were divided into three groups: (1) Sham group - no drug administration but only midline lap-arotomy was performed in the abdomen; (2) Ischemia-Reperfusion (IR) group - ischemia was applied for 1 hour by sealing the por-tal vein and hepatic artery, then vessels were reperfused for 6 hours; (3) IR+Elagic Acid (EA) group - after IR, 10 mg/kg of EA was given in-traperitonially to the rats once a day for 28 days. Oxidative stress markers were analyzed by blood collection. Hepatic tissues were pro-cessed for histological and immunohistochem-ical analysis. RESULTS: MDA level and MPO activity were increased and GSH content was decreased af-ter IR group was compared to sham group. Af-ter EA treatment, these values were improved in IR+EA group. IR caused hepatocyte degenera-tion, sinusoidal dilatation, leukocyte infiltration and disintegrity of hepatic tissue. EA adminis-tration improved histopathology after IR. IR in-jury increased TNF-alpha and Caspase-9 expression in hepatocytes and vascular endothelial cells in IR group; however, both decreased in EA -re-ceived group. CONCLUSIONS: Ellagic Acid may reduce oxidative stress level and prevent induction of inflammation and cell death against hepat-ic IR.

Automated summary

This study aimed to investigate the potential protective effect of Ellagic Acid on damage caused by hepatic ischemia-reperfusion in rats. The results showed that Ellagic Acid can reduce oxidative stress level and prevent induction of inflammation and cell death.