Antioxidative Potential of Pollen, Propolis and Bee Bread against Damage Caused by Staphylococcus Aureus in Liver and Kidney of BALB/c Mice: A Biochemical Study

Abstract

Microbial resistance towards antibiotic is menacing all over the world and therefore considered to be a global health issue. Their potentialities for adapting new resistance mechanisms threaten our ability to treat common infectious diseases. Hence it is important to explore alternative therapies to combat microbial diseases. Among them, honeybee products comprise a wide variety of dietary/nutritional supplements with wide range of pharmaceutical properties. Therefore the present studies were designed to evaluate the therapeutic potential of propolis, pollen and bee bread against Staphylococcus aureus mediated oxidative stress in BALB/c mice. For this, different experimental groups were taken and decapitated at the end of experimental regimen. Liver and kidney were excised/homogenized and used for estimation of oxidative stress caused to them by following standard protocols. Observations revealed severe biochemical alterations by 5th day of infection. Among them, activity of antioxidant enzymes and reduced glutathione level were found to be decreased after S. aureus infection while the lipids peroxidation increased significantly in both liver and kidney. Bee products (250 mg/kg/bw of mice) restore the values of antioxidant enzymes/molecules and liver/kidney function enzymes to near normal by 30th day and results obtained were comparable with the positive control i.e. amoxicillin treatment group.