Lycopene treatment stalls the onset of experimentally induced hepatocellular carcinoma: a radioisotopic, physiological and biochemical analysis

Abstract

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, for any purpose, even commercially, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. How to cite this article: Bhatia N, Singh B, Koul A. Lycopene treatment stalls the onset of experimentally induced hepatocellular carcinoma: a radioisotopic, physiological and biochemical analysis. Hepatoma Res 2018;4:9. http://dx. Abstract Aim: The present study was aimed to determine the modulatory role of lycopene enriched tomato extract (LycT) during initiation of N-nitrosodiethylamine (NDEA) induced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Methods: Female Balb/c mice were divided into 4 groups: control, NDEA (200 mg NDEA/kg b.wt, cumulative dose), LycT (5 mg/kg b.wt, thrice a week) and LycT + NDEA. LycT administration was commenced 2 weeks prior to NDEA administration in LycT + NDEA group. Results: NDEA treatment caused histopathological alterations in hepatic tissue and was associated with enhanced serum levels of inflammatory markers, i.e., tumor necrosis factor-alpha, interleukin (IL)-6 and IL-β. NDEA treatment also induced functional alterations in liver as evident by slow 99m Tc-mebrofenin hepatic excretion. LycT administration to NDEA mice showed improved hepatic functional status as demonstrated by normal 99m Tc-mebrofenin excretion. NDEA treatment also caused alterations in the hematological parameters such as hemoglobin, red blood cells, platelets and total leucocyte counts. A significant increase in plasma lipid peroxidation and decrease in reduced glutathione levels with alterations in various enzymatic antioxidants were observed upon NDEA treatment. LycT pre-treatment aided in boosting the antioxidant defense system and ameliorated the inflammatory and hematological alterations.