Does captopril change oxidative stress in puromycin aminonucleoside nephropathy?

Puromycin aminonucleoside (PAN) nephropathy in rats has been induced by the intraperitoneal injections of PAN. One group of animals which received PAN has been treated simultaneously with captopril (angiotensine converting enzyme-ACE-inhibitor) with the aim to test whether continuing treatment with captopril along with PAN injections would be able to modulate the toxic effects of PAN. The third group of rats was given only captopril. Morphological changes in the kidney were evaluated by scanning electron microscopy that showed the loss of podocyte foot processes in the kidney of PAN treated animals but also in the kidney of captopril treated ones as well as in the animals treated with both drugs simultaneously. Reduced glutathione content, catalase, superoxide dismutase (SOD), glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px), xanthine oxidase activities as well as lipid peroxides were investigated in rat blood and kidney. Captopril given alone produced a significant decrease of plasma lipid peroxides, but it did not show any significant effect on investigated antioxidative factor levels neither in blood nor in the kidney. PAN given alone produced a significant depletion of plasma lipid peroxides, kidney catalase and erythrocyte GSH-Px activity as well as a significant increase of plasma catalase and erythrocyte SOD activity. Treatment of animals with both drugs simultaneously resulted in a significant increase of erythrocyte SOD activity and a significant decrease of plasma lipid peroxides, erythrocyte GSH-Px and kidney SOD activities. Kidney xanthine oxidase activity showed a significant increase in both PAN and PAN plus captopril treated animals in comparison with the values of captopril treated rats. These data suggest that PAN changes the antioxidative factor pattern in rat blood and kidney. Contrary to our expectations that captopril may protect the toxic effects of PAN it only to a certain extent modifies these effects showing protective effect only on tissue catalase activity.