Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
FRESENIUS ENVIRONMENTAL BULLETIN, cilt.21, sa.6, ss.1480-1485, 2012 (SCI-Expanded)
Chromium is a toxic heavy metal used in various industries and leads to environmental pollution due to improper handling. Cr exhibits oxidative stress mediated genotoxic damage although the mechanism of cellular damage caused by Cr has not been fully elucidated. On the other hand, Thymbra spicata L., a member of the Lamiaceae family, was recently investigated popularly of biological roles; mainly antioxidant and antimicrobial activities. However, there is very scarce data on the cytogenetic effects of Thyme species. Therefore, in this study, we aimed to determine whether T. spicata extracts conferred a protection against Chromium (III) chloride (CrCl3)-induced genotoxic and oxidative damage in vitro. For this aim, we determined sister chromatid exchange (SCE) rates and main antioxidant enzyme activities including catalase (CAT) superoxide dismutase (SOD), and glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px) in CrC3l (25 mu M) and T. spicata extracts (TSE) (25, 50, 100 mu M) treated human whole blood cultures (n=3) for 72h. T. spicata extracts at tested concentrations did not exhibit any negative effects on above studied parameters in culture tubes. Besides, the results of the present study indicated that the increases of SCE frequencies and the decreases of antioxidant enzyme activities by CrCl3 were minimized by the application of the T. spicata extracts. Our results firstly suggest that T. spicata augments the antioxidants defense against CrCl3 induced toxicity. Based on the results of this study, it may be concluded that dose controlled T. spicata diet may play a protective role in the process of Cr mutagenesis and/or carcinogenesis.