European Journal of Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences

HISTOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF METHANOL EXTRACTS OF OCIMUM IRVINEI LEAF (CURRY LEAF) ON THE KIDNEY AND PANCREAS OF ADULT WISTAR RATS

H. O. Asuzu-Samuel*

ABSTRACT

Some reports have shown that diabetes and renal diseases which stern from malfunctioning of the cells of the pancreas and kidney respectively have resulted in many deaths in recent years globally. Since Ocimum irvinei is a good medicinal plant which is richly embedded with nutritional and phytochemical constituents that confers on it the ability to maintain health and wellbeing, the study sought to evaluate the effect of administration of its methanolic leaf extract on the histology of the kidney and pancreas of both male and female albino wistar rats. 40 adult wistar rats (20 males and 20 females) were used for the study and were divided into four groups of five animals each for both the males and females. Group I in both cases served as the Control which received normal water daily while the Group II, III and IV animals also in both cases served as the Test groups which received 50mg/kg, 100mg/kg and 150mg/kg of the extract respectively by oral gavage once daily for 14 days. The animals were sacrificed at the end of the study; the kidney and pancreas were harvested, weighed and fixed with formaldehyde in preparation of histological examination. The Hematoxylin and Eosin (H&E) tissue staining techniques were used. The result obtained for the kidney revealed that the administration of methanolic leaf extract of O. irvinei showed normal kidney sections in all animals except for those in group III which showed presence of abnormal cells. The effect of the methanolic extract of O. irvinei on the histology of the pancreas showed similar result as with the kidney. At 100mg/kg, the extract was seen to result in a cell which was seen to be histologically abnormal in both males and females. The result also showed the administration of the extract did not affect renal and pancreatic functions at the doses of 50 and 150mg/kg. Further studies is recommended to elucidate the possible mechanism if its action to evaluate the plant potential value.

Keywords: Wistar Rats, Histological, Phytochemical, Kidney and Ocimum Irvinei.