CCl4 Induced Genotoxicity and Protective Effect of Antioxidants after in vivo Administration to Sheep

Protective effect against carbon tetrachloride-induced genotoxicity was tested in sheep after antioxidative supplementation.Ten 3-4-year-old sheep were treated by carbon tetrachloride, orally.The total dose of 0.05 ml/kg b/w.was corresponding to the former recommended antihelminthic usage in the seventies.Five such sheep were pre-treated by injection of vitamin E (400 mg) and selenium (12 mg) subcutaneously 24 h prior to CCl 4 administration.Sister chromatid exchanges (as a DNA repair error detection technique) were used for genotoxic influences estimation.The technique was applied 16 days after CCl 4 administration in cultured peripheral lymphocytes.SCEs were significantly increased in both tested groups, i.e. with and without of antioxidative pre-treatment.However, the first group exhibited the significance of p < 0.05, contrary to the second untreated group in which the statistical significance reached p < 0.001 when using Student's t-test.This difference supports the protective genotoxic influence of the studied antioxidants in peripheral lymphocytes.In neither of the groups, a significant decrease in the proliferation index was recorded.Thus no cytotoxic effect on the investigated tissue has been proved.As our study showed, administration of a single concurrent treatment of vitamin E and selenium could reduce the genotoxic effect exhibited by the SCE frequencies in comparison to the non-protected individuals, remarkable.