Diminazene aceturate attenuates oxidative and nitrosative imbalance in rats experimentally infected with<em> Trypanosoma evansi</em> Steel

Abstract

Trypanosomosis is an endemic disease in many parts of the world especially in tropical countries like India. Anaemia, thrombocytopenia and free radical mediated tissue damage is thought to play critical role in the pathogenesis of trypanosomosis, but its exact mechanism is not clearly understood till now. Hence, the present study was designed to access the correlation between oxidative stress indices and anaemia, and also with thrombocytopenia in trypanosomosis which can reveal the additional information regarding pathogenesis of the disease as well as to assess the ameliorating effect of dimenazene aceturate in reducing the oxidative stress and its correlation with anaemia and thrombocytopenia in rat model. Twenty four rats were randomly divided in to four groups (n=6). Group C and Group D rats were intraperitoneally inoculated with 10⁴ <em>Trypanosoma evansi</em> Steel on day 0 and were checked regularly for onset of parasitaemia. At the onset of streaming parasitaemia (day 3), the Group D rats were treated with diminazine aceturate intra muscularly but Group C rats did not receive any treatment. Group B rats were injected with the same dose of diminazine aceturate on day 3 and acted as treatment control while Group A played as healthy control. Blood was collected from individual rats on day 0, 3 and 7 for evaluation of haematological parameters, oxidative stress indices (LPO, GSH, SOD and CAT) and nitric oxide (NO). At the end of study (day 7) brain sample was collected from each rat for PCR and histopathology. A negative correlation of haemoglobin and platelet count with LPO and a positive correlation with GSH, SOD and CAT were observed which implicates their role in the pathogenesis of anaemia and thrombocytopenia. The significant increase in haematological values and antioxidant indices (GSH, SOD and CAT) as well as the significant decrease in LPO and NO observed after diminazene therapy (Group D), indicate that diminazene aceturate is highly effective in combating oxidative as well as nitrosative damage caused by <em>T. evansi</em> and also significantly check anaemia and thrombocytopenia.