Apilarnil is a bee product that has attracted attention due to its beneficial biological properties recently. This study aimed to investigate the effect of apilarnil (API) on endotoxin-induced lung injury. For the study, 64 adult male Sprague dawley rats were divided into eight groups; control, 0.2, 0.4 and 0.8 g / kg API treated groups by gavage for 10 days, 30 mg / kg lipopolysaccharide (LPS) administered intraperitoneally (single dose), LPS + 0.2, LPS + 0.4 and LPS + 0.8 g / kg API applied groups. In histopathological evaluation, hyperemia, intra-alveolar hemorrhage, cellular infiltration, and increased cellular abnormal proliferation were observed in the lung samples of the LPS group. It was found that the lung samples of LPS + 0,4 and LPS + 0,8 API groups decreased statistically significant compared to the LPS group. The number of TUNEL positive cells observed in both LPS and API treated groups showed a statistically significant decrease compared to the LPS group. In comet test, 0,8 API group was found to be reduced more in tail % DNA and tail length when LPS + API treated groups were compared with LPS group. In conclusion, the API applied to rats can prevent LPS-induced lung injury.

Organophosphate (OP) pesticides such as dichlorvos (DDVP) intoxication has been shown to produce oxidative stress due to the generation of free radicals, which alter the antioxidant defense system in erythrocytes. In this study, the eff ects of DDVP (1, 10, 100 μM) or DDVP + vitamin C (VC; 10 μM) or vitamin E (VE; 30 μM), on the levels of malondialdehyde (MDA), superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT) and glutathione peroxidase (GPx) activities in human erythrocytes were examined in vitro. There were no statistical diff erences between all groups for 1 μM concentration of DDVP. Treatment with DDVP alone produced an increase in the level of MDA and decreased activities of antioxidant enzymes (P < 0.05). Groups treated with vitamins and DDVP showed protective eff ects of vitamins against DDVP-induced changes in antioxidant enzyme activity and lipid peroxidation (LPO) (10 μM). At 100 μM concentration of DDVP vitamins had no eff ect on DDVP-induced toxicity. The results show that administration of DDVP resulted in the induction of erythrocyte LPO and alterations in antioxidant enzyme activities, suggesting that reactive oxygen species (ROS) may be involved in the toxic eff ects of DDVP. Also the data show that the plasma level of VC and VE may ameliorate OP-induced oxidative stress by decreasing LPO in erythrocytes at certain doses of OP pesicides.

The use of food additives has increased enormously in modern food technology but they have adverse effects in human healthy. The aim of this study was to investigate the DNA damage of some food additives such as citric acid (CA), benzoic acid (BA), brilliant blue (BB) and sunset yellow (SY) which were investigated in human male germ cells using comet assay. The sperm cells were incubated with different concentrations of these food additives (50, 100, 200 and 500 μg/mL) for 1 h at 32 °C. The results showed for CA, BA, BB and SY a dose dependent increase in tail DNA%, tail length and tail moment in human sperm when compared to control group. When control values were compared in the studied parameters in the treatment concentrations, SY was found to exhibit the highest level of DNA damage followed by BB > BA > CA. However, none of the food additives affected the tail DNA%, tail length and tail moment at 50 and 100 μg/mL. At 200 μg/mL of SY, the tail DNA% and tail length of sperm were 95.80 ± 0.28 and 42.56 ± 4.66, for BB the values were 95.06 ± 2.30 and 39.56 ± 3.78, whereas for BA the values were 89.05 ± 2.78 and 31.50 ± 0.71, for CA the values were 88.59 ± 6.45 and 13.59 ± 2.74, respectively. However, only the highest concentration of the used food additives significantly affected the studied parameters of sperm DNA. The present results indicate that SY and BB are more harmful than BA and CA to human sperm in vitro.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the protective effect of catechin and quercetin in sodium benzoate- (SB-) induced oxidative stress in human erythrocytes in vitro. For this, the effects of SB (6.25, 12.5, 25, 50, and 100 μg/mL), catechin (10 μM), and quercetin (10 μM) on lipid peroxidation (LPO) and the activities of SOD, CAT, GPx, and GST were studied. Significantly higher LPO and lower activities of antioxidant enzymes were observed with the increasing concentrations of SB. Catechin or quercetin protected the erythrocytes against SB-induced toxicity only at low concentrations of SB. The presence of catechin or quercetin at 10 μM have no effect on SB-induced toxicity at high concentrations of SB (50 and 100 μg/mL). In conclusion, SB may cause oxidative stress as food additive in human erythrocytes in vitro. So, it appears that our findings provide evidence for the protection of erythrocytes from SB that could be considered for further studies.

Cisplatin is one of the most effective chemotherapeutic agents but injury may occur at higher doses. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of bilberry on cisplatin induced toxic effects in rat ovary. Twenty-one female Wistar-Albino rats were utilized to form three groups: In group 1 (control group), each rat received intraperitoneal injection of 1 mL of 0.9 % NaCl saline solution during 10