Protective effects of zingerone on oxidative stress and inflammation in cisplatin-induced rat nephrotoxicity

Cisplatin is one of the most commonly used and highly effective cancer chemotherapeutic agents. Use of cisplatin is limited due to persistence of severe side effects such as nephrotoxicity, neurotoxicity, and hearing loss. Nephrotoxicity is the most common limiting side effect of cisplatin use. Zingerone is one of the active ingredients present in ginger plant that has anti-inflammatory and antioxidant effects. In this study, Wistar rats were assigned randomly to 6 groups with 5 animals in each group. The control group; cisplatin group which received 7.5 mg/kg of cisplatin intraperitoneally (i.p.) at the 4th day; zingerone group received 50 mg/kg of zingerone orally for 7 days. Three other groups were pretreated with 10, 20, and 50 mg/kg of zingerone orally for 7 days and cisplatin administered 7.5 mg/kg i.p. at the 4th day, respectively. The animals were sacrificed 72 h after cisplatin injection and blood samples were taken to evaluate the serum factors. Right kidneys were collected for histopathological studies and left kidneys were considered to measure the oxidative stress parameters and TNF-α cytokine. Co-administration of zingerone along with cisplatin resulted a statistically significant reduction in lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) activity, creatinine and BUN levels of serum in comparison with cisplatin alone group (P < 0.01). Zingerone significantly decreased the tissue levels of malondialdehyde (MDA) (P < 0.05) and significantly retained the enzyme activity of catalase (CAT) (P < 0.05) and glutathione peroxidase (GPX) (P < 0.05) in kidney tissue compared to cisplatin. Zingerone did not permit the reduction of glutathione (GSH) levels (P < 0.001) in kidney tissue and by reducing the level of tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α (P < 0.05) suppressed the inflammation produced by cisplatin. Furthermore, zingerone improved histopathological changes such as vacuolation (fat deposit), brush border loss, infiltration of leukocytes, glomerular diameters and congestion of RBCs. However, our findings suggest that zingerone has nephroprotective effects in cisplatin rat model of nephrotoxicity mostly through suppression of oxidative stress and inflammation.