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Betanin alleviates oxidative stress through the Nrf2 signaling pathway in the liver of STZ-induced diabetic rats

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Abstract

Background

Continuing hyperglycemia causes and exacerbate oxidative stress. Betanin as the principal pigment of red beet root has antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and anti-diabetic properties. The purpose of this study was to investigate the potency of betanin on antioxidant defense in STZ-induced diabetic rats’ livers.

Methods

STZ at a single dose of 60 mg/kg body weight was intraperitoneally injected and betanin (10, 20, and 40 mg/kg/day) was administered orally for 28 days. Malondialdehyde (MDA), total antioxidant capacity (TAC), protein carbonyl (PC) levels, and the enzyme activity of superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalases and glutathione peroxidases (GPx) were evaluated in the liver. Furthermore, gene expression of Nrf2 and mentioned antioxidant enzymes were measured by Real-time PCR.

Results

Betanin (10 and 20 mg/kg) significantly reduced PC levels and increased antioxidant enzyme activity in diabetic rats compared to the control diabetic group (P < 0.01). In comparison to the diabetic control group, all studied genes expression in diabetic rats were increased significantly with betanin at doses of 10 and 20 mg/kg (P < 0.02). The increase in gene expression at 20 mg/kg of betanin was significantly stronger than others (P < 0.015) except for the catalase (P = 0.201), that was almost the same. Moreover, treatment of diabetic rats with 20 mg/kg of betanin could significantly increase TAC levels (P < 0.05) and decrease MDA levels (P < 0.001) compared to diabetic control group.

Conclusions

Betanin could increase the antioxidant capacity of liver tissue associated with the Nrf2-mediated pathway in a dose-dependent manner.

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Data Availability

All data of present study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the Vice Chancellor for Research of Zanjan University of Medical Sciences for the financial support.

Funding

The present study was funded by the Vice Chancellor for Research of Zanjan University of Medical Sciences and Student Research Committee of Zanjan University of Medical Sciences (Grants no. A-12-1125-6 and A-12-1125-7).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Clinical Biochemistry, School of Medicine, Zanjan University of Medical Sciences, Zanjan, Iran

    Maryam Mousavi, Behrooz Motlagh, Hadi Khodabandehloo, Mojtaba Fathi & Moosa Talebi

  2. Student Research Committee, Zanjan University of Medical Sciences, Zanjan, Iran

    Maryam Mousavi

  3. Department of Nutrition, School of Medicine, Zanjan University of Medical Sciences, Zanjan, Iran

    Nasim Abedimanesh

  4. Department of Clinical Pharmacy, Faculty of Pharmacy, Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences, Sari, Iran

    Kosar Mohammadnejad

  5. Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, School of Pharmacy, Zanjan University of Medical Sciences, Zanjan, Iran

    Elham Sharini, Maryam Nikkhah & Mohammad Reza Eskandari

  6. Department of Life Science Engineering, Faculty of New Sciences and Technologies, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran

    Javad Mohammadnejad

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  1. Maryam Mousavi
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Contributions

MM, E SH, M N, M T were involved in data collection and performance of experiment. N A and MR E were involved in conceptualization, formal analysis, data curation, methodology, writing original draft and review and editing and visualization. H KH, M F, J M contributed in investigation and validation. K M contributed in writing original draft and review. B M contributed in methodology, editing, supervision and project administration. All authors reviewed the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Behrooz Motlagh.

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All procedures were according to the Ethics Committee of Zanjan University of Medical Sciences (IR.ZUMS.REC.1398.475).

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Mousavi, M., Abedimanesh, N., Mohammadnejad, K. et al. Betanin alleviates oxidative stress through the Nrf2 signaling pathway in the liver of STZ-induced diabetic rats. Mol Biol Rep 49, 9345–9354 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11033-022-07781-8

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