Immunosuppression, hepatotoxicity and depression of antioxidant status by arecoline in albino mice

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In an attempt to understand the mechanism of action of arecoline at molecular level, interaction of 3H arecoline with DNA, RNA, Protein in glutathione was studied in Swiss mice. Six week old Swiss strain male mice were injected (ip) with 3H arecoline (1 'ci/g body wt). Animals were killed at different time intervals (10 min, 3 h, 18 h 24 h, 7 days) after the injection. DNA, RNA, protein and glutathione were isolated by standard methods and radioactivity was measured from these fractions. Among all these fractions maximum specific activity was observed in glutathione fraction and next to it in DNA fraction Significantly high radioactivity was observed in all the fractions under study at 10 minutes indicating possibility of interaction with intact arecoline. Further, pretreatment of sulfhydryl reaction reagents decreased the specific activity of protein in mice injected with 3H arecoline.

NM Shivapurkar

Papers

Interaction of 2H arecoline with SH group and other biomolecules