The Effects of Vitamin E on Catalase Activies in Various Rat Tissues

Authors: Gülinnaz ALPER, Mehtap ÇINAR, Cenk CAN, Gülriz MENTEŞ, Biltan ERSÖZ, Akgün EVINÇ

Abstract: Vitamin E and other antioxidants prevent or minimize oxidative damage in biological systems. The level of antioxidant defense sufficient to protect the organism from high free radical concentrations is one of the new horizons for Vitamin E research. The role of Vitamin E as a protective agent aganist oxidative stress was evaluated by meas-uring the antioxidant enzyme catalase (CAT) activities in different tissues of Swiss male albino rats aged two months. In this study, rats were divided to three groups; control (n=10), E 1 (n=5) which received 25 mg/kg. per day of Vitamin E, IM. for 10 days and E 2 (n=7) which received 50 mg/kg. per day of Vitamin E, I.M. for 25 days. Catalase activities of cortex cerebrum, cerebellum, liver, kidney, heart and lung tissues were determined by a modified method of Luck and Aebi. Comparing the Vitamin E supplemented group (E1 +E2) with the controls, no significant difference could be detected in tissue CAT activities. However, in group E2 both renal and cardiac CAT activities were found to be higher when compared to the controls (p<0.01) as well as to the E1 group (p<0.01). Since beneficial effects of Vitamin E has been observed on human health, this issue is very important for basic science and for the rapeutic approaches as well.

Keywords: catalase, Vitamin E, kidney, heart, rats

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