8. Protective effects of prosopis juliflora against staphylococcus aureus induced hepatotoxicity in rats

Prosopis juliflora is well known for its antibacterial and antioxidant properties. The present study was aimed to investigate the protective effects of P. juliflora on the activity levels of antioxidant enzymes against Staphylococcus aureus induced oxidative stress in the liver of rats. Significant increase (p<0.0001) in the lipid peroxidation products accompanied by a significant reduction (p<0.0001) in the activity levels of superoxide dismutase, catalase, glutathione peroxidase, gluthaione-s-transferase, glutathione reductase and also reduced glutathione content were observed in the liver of S. aureus intoxicated rats over controls. Significant increase (p<0.0001) in the DNA fragmentation was also observed in bacteria infected rats. Further, histological alterations also suggest the centrilobular hepatocyte hypertrophy in the liver of S. aureus infected rats. However, co-administration of P. juliflora shows reversal effects on the selected biochemical variables and reduces the DNA fragmentation in the liver of bacteria infected rats over S. aureus alone infected rats. Thus, the results suggest the beneficial role of P. juliflora might be due to its antioxidative properties against S. aureus infection induced oxidative stress and DNA damage in liver.