Protective effect of lycopene against mercury-induced cytotoxicity in albino mice: pathological evaluation

The present study was carried out to evaluate the protective role of lycopene on cytotoxicity induced by mercury in albino mice. The animals were randomly divided into seven groups. Group I (control) were treated with tap water Group II (positive control) were treated with 20 mg kg(-1) d(-1) lycopene, Group III were treated with 10 mg kg(-1) body weight mercury Group IV were treated with 10 mg kg(-1) body weight mercury + 5 mg kg(-1) d(-1) lycopene, Group V were treated with 10 mg kg(-1) body weight mercury + 10 mg kg(-1) d(-1) lycopene, Group VI were treated with 10 mg kg(-1) body weight mercury + 15 mg kg(-1) d(-1) lycopene, Group VII were treated with 10 mg kg(-1) body weight mercury + 20 mg kg(-1) d(-1) lycopene once a day for 20 consecutive days by oral gavage. The initial and final weights of all mice were measured by sensitive balance in order to investigate the effect of mercury and lycopene on the body weight of mice. Then, MN slides were prepared using the standard MN assay technique with Giemsa staining from erythrocyte cells of each mouse and were scored using binocular light microscope (Japan, Olympus BX 51). The results indicated that, all lycopene-supplemented lymphocytes showed a lower MN frequency than lymphocytes in only mercury-treated group. It was seen that lycopene had protective effect on MN particularly at 20 mg kg(-1) d(-1) dose when compared with the other doses. Besides, weight gain increased depending on dose of applied lycopene when compared with only mercury-treated group. In histopathological examinations, although it has been observed severe changes such as hemorrhage, hepatocyte degeneration and tubular degeneration of kidney in only mercury-treated group, there was an observable regression on the severity and account of these lesions in tissues of mice supplemented with different doses of lycopene. In vivo results showed that the lycopene supplementation decreases cytotoxicity induced by mercury and its protective role is dose-dependent.