Protective effects of lycopene against methotrexate-induced hepatic toxicity in mice

In this study, it is aimed to investigate the protective effects of lycopene (LYC) against methotrexate –induced hepatic toxicity in mice. The total period of our study was set as five days. In this study, twenty four balb-c type male rats were seperated into four groups. 0,5 ml saline was given to the first group(control group). Single doze 20 mg/kg MTX was given to the second group ( the MTX group) as intraperitonal. The third group ( the mice of treatment group - MTX+LYC) was enjected 20mg/kg of MTX on the first day of the study and for 5 days (including the first day) they were given 5 mg/kg of Lycopen by oral gavage. LYC was given to the 4th group (LYC group) for five days. At the end of the five days experiment, liver of the mice were taken out euthonasia were applied by exsanguination. Each of liver were diveded some pieces an done of them used for histological process. These tissues were examined under a light microscope. The histopathological investigation of the second group (MTX group) preparations showed that in all MTX group preparations had granular degeneration in hepatocytes and vakuolizasyon, vaskular congestion, inflammatory cell infiltration, sinusoidal range congestion, apoptic cells and pycnotic nuclei. In all third group (MTX+LYC) had vascular congestion and degeneration in hepatocytes. There were no histopathological findings in the control group and LYC group.Our findings shows that MTX causes liver damage and LYC application can prevent this damage. Consequently, we think that LYC can be useful in the prevention of the liver damage that happens after MTX treatment.