TISSUE TOXICITY INDUCED BY DOXORUBICIN IN RATS: PROTECTIVE ROLE OF AEROBIC REGULAR EXERCISE

Doxorubicin (DOX) is an anthracycline antibiotic that is widely used as an anticancer agent. However, the clinical use of DOX is limited due to its toxic side effects upon non-target tissues. The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of 6 weeks of aerobic training on dox-induced toxicity in rat tissues (heart and liver). This study was conducted on thirty-two Wistar male rats randomly assigned to 1.control+salin, 2. control+DOX, 3. training+salin, 4) training+DOX groups. Groups 3 and 4 were trained on treadmill between 25 to 54 min/day and 15 to 20 m/min, 5 days/week for 6 weeks. The groups 2, 4 and groups 1, 3 received DOX (20 mg.kg-1 i.p) and saline (0.9% NaCl i.p), respectively. Animals were sacrificed 24 h after DOX and saline injections. Also, heart and liver tissue homogenization and assay parameters were performed. Doxorubicin administration cause a significant increase in malondialdehyde (MDA), nitric oxide (NO) and a significant decrease in the superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity in heart and liver tissues; however, the difference was not significant between the two tissues. Although the 6-week aerobic training+DOX caused a down-regulation of oxidant markers and up-regulation of the SOD activity in heart and liver tissues, but only changes of the SOD activity was significant between the heart and liver tissues. Our study suggests that cardiac/liver protection induced by chronically exercise in DOX treated rats is associated with inhibition of oxidative stress and increase in the antioxidant defense levels.