Cytoarchitectural organization and histochemical pattern of paraquat injection on some parenchymatous organs of Albino rat

ABSTRACT

Paraquat is one of the bipyridinium herbicides that proved to be remarkably safe in use in different weed control situations. However, several hundred persons died as a result of paraquat poisoning. The present study was undertaken to follow up the effect of injections of variable doses of paraquat on liver, kidney and adrenal gland of male albino rats. Thirty animals were injected intraperitoneally with two different doses of paraquat [80 and 150 mg/ Kg body weight]. The results showed that paraquat affects the histological architecture of all target organs in a dose dependent fashion. It produced haemorrhage and necrosis. In the liver, the cells in the peripheral regions of the hepatic lobules were more affected than the central ones. In the kidney, the epithelial cells of the proximal and distal convoluted tubules were mainly affected, while in the adrenal gland the haemorrhage and necrosis were detected in the cortex. Mucopolysaccharides and nucleic acids content together with alkaline phosphatase activity were decreased when compared with the control. The mechanism of paraquat toxicity may be related to the production of H[2]O[2]and O[2] which, in turn, are toxic to cellular activities. At the same time, the possibility that paraquat competes with cellular organoids for NADPH is another aspect of the toxic mechanism