Protective Effects of Thymus Vulgaris Oil Against CCL4-Mediated Hepatotoxicity, Oxidative Stress and Immunosuppression in Male Albino Rats

Abstract

A variety of alternative medicine is aromatherapy that uses essential oils for treating and preventing disease. The current study was applied to investigate the possible protective effects of Thymus vulgaris essential oil (TEO) against carbon tetrachloride (CCl4) toxicity. Forty-eight rats were equally allocated into six experimental groups and effectively treated for 4 weeks as follows: control group; the group treated with CCl4 (1ml/ kg b.w) CCl4 twice a week; the groups treated daily with low and high doses of TEO (2.5 and 5 mg/kg b.w) and the groups received CCl4 twice a week and treated daily with TEO at the two tested doses. At the end of the treatment period, blood and tissue samples were collected for estimation of hematological, biochemical, antioxidant, immunological parameters, and histopathological assessment, and immunohistochemistry for cleave caspase and PCNA in hepatic tissue. CCl4 significantly decreased all hematological parameters except neutrophils and toxic neutrophils counts were significantly increased. Moreover, CCl4 increased the liver enzymes level and hepatic oxidative stress parameters. Meanwhile, the antioxidants, respiratory burst, phagocytic, serum lysozyme, and bactericidal activities were significantly suppressed in CCl4-intoxicatedrats. Also, CCl4 raised serum levels of TNF-α, IL-6, and diminished IL-10, IL-12. It also increased caspase 3 and PCNA. The treatment with T. vulgaris oil attenuated the toxic effect of CCl4 in all hematological parameters. It also reduced the hepatotoxic effect of CCl4, enhanced the antioxidant system, and improved the innate immune parameters and inflammatory markers to their normal level. Based on histopathological analysis T. vulgaris oil ameliorates hepatocellular necrosis induced by CCl4. Immunohistochemical assessment depicted lowered immunoreactivity against cleaved caspase-3 expression, significantly in comparison to CCl4 treated group. Meanwhile, significantly increases at PCNA Immunoreactivity which indicates hepatocellular regeneration in T. vulgaris oil. More pronounced improvement was noticed in the group received the high dose of TEO. Our results suggested that Thymus vulgaris essential oil has a potential antioxidant activity and many protective effects against liver toxicity induced by CCl4 and this protection was dose-dependent.