RESEARCH ARTICLE


The Teratogenic Mechanism of Echinochrome as a Hypoglycemic Agent on Wistar Rats



Ayman S. Mohamed1, *, Eman Y. Salah EL Din2, Neveen A. Farag2, Abdel Rahman A. Tawfik2
1 Department of Physiology Zoology, Faculty of Science, Cairo University, 12613, Giza, Egypt
2 Department Comparative Anatomy and Embryology Zoology, Faculty of Science, Cairo University, Giza, Egypt


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Creative Commons License
© 2019 Ayman et al.

open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode). This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

* Address correspondence to this author at Department of Physiology Zoology, Faculty of Science, Cairo University, 12613, Giza, Egypt; E-mail: ayman81125@hotmail.com, ayman81125@cu.edu.eg


Abstract

Background:

Echinochrome (Ech) is the active ingredient in the Histochrome drug, which possesses strong antioxidant, hypolipidemic and hypoglycemic activity.

Objective:

The present work aimed to characterize the malformations induced by moderate and high dose of Ech during pregnancy.

Methods:

In this study, eighteen (18) female pregnant rats were assigned into 3 groups (6 rats/ group); control group, low dose Ech (0.1 mg/kg) and high dose Ech (1 mg/kg).

Results:

The high dose of Ech caused a significant decrease in the number of embryos, uteri weight, body weight gain, placenta weight, and embryo weight and length. Also, the high dose led to a significant increase in serum AST, ALT, ALP, urea and uric acid of mothers.

Conclusion:

Our findings revealed the first teratogenic effects of high dose Ech. The teratogenic mechanism of Ech works through induction of the hypoglycemic condition in pregnant rats.

Keywords: Histchrome, Echinochrome, Teratogenicity, Hypoglycemia, Birth defect, Hypolipidemic.