Parasitemia and antimalarial-induced histological alterations and oxidative stress in infected mice

In lieu of the reports on re-emergence of chloroquine sensitive Plasmodium falciparum, the choice of the drug for the treatment of malaria especially in the endemic areas may not be ruled out. Here, we reported the antioxidative status and histology of some vital organs in mice infected with P. berghei and subsequently treated with chloroquine. The study was a 4 by 10 model design as follows, the control non-infected, the infected (IN) and chloroquine-treated infected (CqTI)/non-infected (CqTNI) mice. The challenged animals were subjected to five days treatment after parasitemia was established using Gemsa stain. Assays were conducted on the animals following standard procedures. The results showed that parasitemia and Chloroquine induced oxidative stress in (IN) and (CqTNI) groups. This was indicated by significant (p<0.05) changes in the antioxidant defence indices viz superoxide dismutase (SOD), reduced glutathione (GSH), glutathione-S-transferase (GST), catalase (CAT), malondialdehyde (MDA) and protein concentration. There were also alterations in the architectures of some vital organs such as liver, kidney and heart of the experimental groups compared with control. The subsequent treatment of the infected group with Chloroquine (CqTI) restored some of the indices altered during the infection to a normal level. This study shows that malaria and itsradical treatment in vivo can induce oxidative stress which in turncan cause injury to the host tissues particularly during chronicadministration of Chloroquine-an implication for prolong intake ofthe drug.

Parasitemia and antimalarial-induced histological alterations and oxidative stress in infected mice Keywords:

Plasmodium berghei , Antimalarial , Oxidative stress , Organs , Mice