Investigation of the effects of Alfa lipoic acid on changes in maternal rat kidney caused by tobacco smoke exposure in pregnancy

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of alpha lipoic acid on histopathological results of kidney tissue of mothers exposed to tobacco smoke during pregnancy. Twenty-eight Spraque-Dawley female rats were used. Rats were randomly divided into four groups: control, tobacco smoke (TS), tobacco smoke + alpha lipoic acid (TS+ALA) and alpha lipoic acid (ALA). Rats in the TS and TS+ALA groups were exposed to TS twice a day for one hour starting from eight weeks before mating and during pregnancy. 20 mg/kg of ALA was administered by gavage to ALA and TS+ALA group. The kidney tissues were examined by histological, immunohistochemical and MDA levels. Histopathological findings such as inflammatory cell increase, enlargement Bowman distance and hyaline casts in the tubule lumen were observed in the TS group. ALA application was found to reduce the majority of histopathological findings. VEGF immunoreactivity was significantly increased in the TS group compared to the control group, whereas in the TS+ALA group, VEGF immunoreactivity was significantly lower than TS group. MDA levels were significantly increased in the TS group compared to the control group. As a result, it has been shown that exposure of tobacco smoke during pregnancy causes an increase in histopathologic damage and vascularity in kidney tissues and that alpha lipoic acid has a partially protective effect against this effects. © 2019 Ataturk Universitesi. All rights reserved.