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Food and Chemical Toxicology
Elsevier Science direct
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Abstract: |
The objective of the current study is to investigate the protective effect of Egyptian bee venom (BV) against
methyl mercury chloride (MMC) induced blood-brain barrier (BBB) damage and neurobehavioral changes.
Eighty male Sprague-Dawley rats were randomly grouped into 1st control (C), 2nd BV (0.5 mg/kg S/C for14
days), 3rd MMC (6.7 mg/kg orally/14 days), and 4th MMC + BV group. MMC exposure significantly altered rat
cognitive behavior, auditory startle habituation, and swimming performance, increased the exploratory,
grooming, and stereotypic behavior. MMC significantly impaired BBB integrity via induction of inflammation,
oxidative stress, and down-regulation of tight junction proteins genes (TJPs) mRNA expression levels: Occludin
(OCC), Claudins-5 (CLDN5), Zonula occludens-1 (ZO-1), while up-regulated the transforming growth factor-beta
(TGF-β) mRNA expression levels. MMC revealed a significantly higher percentage of IgG positive area ratio, a
higher index ratio of Iba1, Sox10, and ss-DNA, while index ratio of CD31, neurofilament, and pan neuron showed
a significant reduction. Administration of BV significantly regulates the MMC altered behavioral responses, TJPs
relative mRNA expression, and the immune-expression markers for specific neural cell types. It could be
concluded for the first time that BV retains a promising in vivo protection against MMC-induced BBB dysfunction
and neurobehavioral toxicity.
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