European Journal of Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences

EFFECT OF ?-CAROTENE AGAINST COLCHICINE-INDUCED MYOTOXICITY IN MALE RATS

Nawal Zakaria Haggag* and Laila Ahmed Rashed

ABSTRACT

Myopathy affects physical disability and interrupts the health system, hence intrudes life quality of humans. Colchicine is one of several drugs that has many side effects and can induce myotoxicity. Antioxidants should be available in sufficient concentration to keep the balance with oxidative stress and avoid tissue damage. Beta carotene (β-carotene) is an important member of carotenoids which has a powerful oxidative scavenger capacity. There is a great attention to more developed strategies for the use of β-carotene to avoid cardiac myopathy. This study aimed to evaluate the role of β-carotene (10 mg/ kg b.wt/day, orally for 2 weeks) against myotoxicity induced by colchicine (0.05 mg/ kg b.wt/day, intraperitoneanally for 2 weeks) in adult male albino rats. The results showed that β-carotene had improved myopathy markers either by co-administration or post-administration with colchicine. Also, β-carotene restored body and muscle weight gains, rearranged autophagy signals (LC3-II and LAMP-2) and collagen-1. Moreover β-carotene attenuated ROS and NO with increase of SOD levels and improvement of CK and LDH activities. Hence, β-carotene offers an exciting possibility of using it as effective antioxidant against muscle toxicity and atrophy induced by colchicine.

Keywords: ?-carotene, myotoxicity, autophagy, antioxidant, colchicine.