Protective Effect of Vitamin C and Ginseng on Experimental Liver and Kidney Injuries Induced by Insecticide Profenophos In Mal

The present investigation deals with histopathological and histochemical studies of profenophos on liver and kidney of male albino rats and the protective effects of vitamin C and ginseng to reduce the deleterious effect induced by profenophos. Oral administration of profenophos at dose level of 1 /10 LD50 for 15 successive days induced histological changes in liver and kidney. No histological or histochemical change could be detected in liver and kidney of rats treated with each of vitamin C and ginseng. Profenophos treatment also resulted in histochemical changes in liver and kidney including decrease in protein granules and marked decrease in DNA and mucopolysaccharides content. Administration of vitamin C (0.01/ 100 g b.w) and ginseng (20 mg/ kg b.w) to profenophos treated animals resulted in an improvement in histological picture of liver and kidney as well as the histochemical parameters. Introduction Pesticides are toxic chemical which have been used extensively to increase food production and improve the quality of agricultural crops, and have become an integral part of modern farming. They are generally used to control insects of food crops, fiber crops, soils, pastures and forests (Akhter, 1985). Pesticides are mainly used in agriculture (68%), in commercial and in industrial activities (17%), domestically (8%) and (7%) in governmental application (cantoni and Comi, 1997). Also, these pesticides are chemical hazardous consequences as they may be the cause of death both through accidental or international ingestion (Sullivan and Blose, 1992). Each pesticide had a specific pattern of affinity for different tissues (GarciaRepetto et al., 1995). Organophosphorous compounds represent a large proportion of insecticides used all over the world (Gralewicz and Socko 1997). The lethality of organophosphorous comp ounds has been attributed to their inhibitory effect on a cetylcholines terase (AchE) in the nervous system which is responsible for the inactive ation of neurotransmitter a cetylcholin (Liu et al., 1994 and Aschner, 2000). Profenophos, which is the pesticide of choice in the present study, is a widely organophosphorous insecti cide used in Egypt for the control of various caterpillars, white fly and mites on cotton and vegetable crops (British crop protection conuncil, 1991). In animal studies, many pesticides are carcinogenic (e.g organophlorines, creosote and sulfallate) while other (notably, the organochlorines, DDT, chlordane and lindane) are tumor promoters (Dich et al., 1997). Both dimethyl methyl phosphonate (DMMP) and trimethyl phosphate (TMF) are