EFFECT OF PUTRESCINE ON EXPERIMENTAL ACUTE HEPATIC INJURY IN RATS

This report discribes the effect of exogenous putrescine on exprimental acute hepatic injury in rats. Hepatic damages was induced by d-galactosamine (GalN). A method of high specificity using high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) for the determination of putrescine and spermine in biological specimens was developed.The results showed that the putrescine content in putrescine-treated rats was much lower than that in untreated rats 24 and 48 h after administration of GalN (P<0.01); The spermine levels did not alter significantly.In GaIN intoxicated rats, the elevation of SGPT was impeded significantly by putrescine but not by saline. The difference between the two groups was very significant (P<0.01).The contents of DNA and RNA in the livers of putrescine-treated rats was also higher than that of the control group (P<0.05).Histopathological investigation revealed that lesions of the liver of putrescinetreated rats were less severe than those of GalN controls.Effect of putrescine administration on the putrescine contents of rat liver have been measured by kinetic method. A semilogrithmic plot of the concentration of putrescine in normal rat against time after its injection gave a straight line between 30 min and 4 h. assuming a single compatment model for elimination of exogenous putrescine from the liver, the elimination half-life (t_(1/2)) of exogenous putrescine was 2.6 h. whereas the t_(1/2) following liver damage in the rat is prolonged.The present findings strongly suggest that the rise in putrescine content is an important and possibly indispensable step in the repair of damaged cells.Our data show that exogenous putrescine accelerate or assists the process of recovery from liver damage caused by hepatotoxic agents.