Paraquat induced oxidative stress, DNA damage, and cytotoxicity in lymphocytes

Soheila Alizadeh; Gholamreza Anani-Sarab; Hoda Amiri; Majid Hashemi

doi:10.1016/j.heliyon.2022.e09895

Paraquat induced oxidative stress, DNA damage, and cytotoxicity in lymphocytes

Heliyon. 2022 Jul 8;8(7):e09895. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2022.e09895. eCollection 2022 Jul.

Authors

Soheila Alizadeh^{1

2}, Gholamreza Anani-Sarab^{3

4}, Hoda Amiri^{1

2}, Majid Hashemi^{1

2

5}

Affiliations

¹ Environmental Health Engineering Research Center, Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Kerman, Iran.
² Department of Environmental Health Engineering, Faculty of Public Health, Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Kerman, Iran.
³ Medical Toxicology & Drug Abuse Research Center Birjand University of Medical Sciences, Birjand, Iran.
⁴ School of Allied Medical Sciences Birjand University of Medical Sciences, Birjand, Iran.
⁵ Student Research Committee, Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Kerman, Iran.

Abstract

Paraquat (PQ) is a herbicide belonging to the group of bipyridylium salts. The objective of this study was to evaluate oxidative stress, DNA damage, and cytotoxicity induced by paraquat in peripheral lymphocyte cells in vivo as well as pathological changes in various tissues. For this purpose, 28 male Wistar rats in 6 different groups were poisoned by paraquat gavage and blood samples were taken from the hearts of rats after during the poisoning period. Oxidative stress, DNA damage, cell membrane integrity, serum lactate dehydrogenase, and cytotoxicity, were investigated by Ferric Reducing Antioxidant Potential (FRAP) test, alkaline comet assay, measuring serum lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), Hoechst staining and flow cytometry with propidium iodide (PI) respectively. The lung, kidney, and liver tissues were also examined pathologically. Paraquat caused dose-dependent DNA damage in peripheral lymphocyte cells and significant oxidative cell membrane damage. The most damage was caused by a single dose of 200 mg/kg b.w of paraquat by gavage. The gradual exposure to a dose of 300 mg/kg b.w of paraquat showed less damage, which could be due to the activation of the antioxidant defense mechanism.

Keywords: Cytotoxicity; DNA damage; In vivo; Oxidative stress; Paraquat.