Protective effects of lycopene against adenine-induced chronic renal failure in rats

Objectives: Chronic renal failure (CRF) is a public health concern in both developed and developing countries. Therefore, there is still a need to look for secure and successful agents that can either minimise or prevent CRF from advancing to end-stage renal disorder. This study aimed to assess the effect of lycopene on adenine-induced CRF in the rat. Materials and Methods: Animals were divided into five groups ( n = 6). Normal control group received normal vehicle, disease control group received orally adenine (50 mg/kg/day), L 100 group received orally lycopene (100 mg/kg/day) + adenine (50 mg/kg/day), L 200 group received orally lycopene (200 mg/kg/day) + adenine (50 mg/kg/day) and L 400 group received orally lycopene (400 mg/kg/day) + adenine (50 mg/kg/day) for 30 days. Results: Compared to the control group, the disease control group had decreased bodyweight, food intake and also increased the relative kidney weight and urine output. Adenine-treated group also significantly increased the blood urea nitrogen, serum creatinine, phosphorus, alkaline phosphatase, uric acid, magnesium and reduced the calcium, urine creatinine and urine urea nitrogen. Besides, adenine also gave a positive test of serum C-reactive protein and proteinuria. Histopathologically, adenine caused significant inflammatory changes to renal tissues compared with the normal control group. When administered concomitantly with adenine, lycopene alleviated all the measured adenine-induced physiological, biochemical and histological changes. Conclusion: We concluded from this analysis that oral lycopene administration could potentially mitigate the adverse effect of CRF that might be due to their antioxidant and free radical scavenging properties.