“ Potential protective effects of chrysin on experimentally-induced gastropathy in rats“

Abstract

Chrysin, a natural flavone, possesses multiple biological activities, such as antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and anti-apoptotic. In this study, the protective effect of chrysin pretreatment against indomethacin-induced gastric ulcer was investigated.The results were compared to omeprazole, a reference drug widely used for gastric ulcer. A preliminary screening for the gastroprotective dose of chrysin was conducted where rats were divided randomly into 6 groups; and treated as follows; Group 1 (control group) received single oral dose (2.5 ml/kg) of a mixture of DMSO and corn oil (1:9) (chrysin vehicle) followed one hour later by single oral dose of 2% gum acacia in distilled water (indomethacin vehicle). Group 2 received single oral dose of indomethacin at a dose of 48 mg/kg. Group 3 was pretreated with a single oral dose of omeprazole at a dose of 30 mg/kgfollowed one hour later by a single oral dose of indomethacin (48 mg/kg).Groups 4, 5 and 6 were pretreated with a single oral dose of chrysin at doses of 25, 50 and 100 mg/kg, respectively. One hour later, groups (4-6) received single oral dose of indomethacin (48 mg/kg). Rats were sacrificed 12h after treatment and stomachs were removed and opened along the greater curvatureeither for the immediate determination of ulcer and lesion indices or morphological examination. In addition, stomach specimens from different groups were subjected to histopathological examination and mucin assessment for the determination of the optimal chrysin dose to be used for further mechanistic investigations. Chrysin in the doses of 50 and 100 mg/kg have been chosen to be the most effective in protecting against indomethacin-induced gastric ulcer.