Curative effects of kaempferide on cadmium-instigated hepatotoxicity in male albino rats

Cadmium (Cd) is an environmental and industrial toxicant that possess the ability to cause severe health issues to humans and animals. The flavonol, kaempferide (KF), exhibits multiple pharmacological potentials. Therefore, this investigation was designed to estimate the mitigative effect of KF against Cd instigated hepatic damage in rats. 24 albino rats (male) were kept in 4 different groups. The group-1 was designed as untreated/control group, group-2 was orally provided with Cd (5 mg/kg), group-3 was orally co-administrated with Cd (5 mg/kg) along with KF (20 mg/kg) and group-4 was supplemented with KF (20 mg/kg) during 30 days of trial. Cd administration significantly escalated ALT, ALP as well as AST levels. A substantial decline in SOD, GST, POD, CAT, GSR activities and GSH content was observed due to Cd exposure along with an elevation in TBARS and H2O2 levels. Moreover, Cd administration elevated NF-kB, IL-6, TNF-α as well as IL-1β levels in addition to the activity of COX-2. Furthermore, the levels of Bax, Caspase-9 as well as Caspase-3 were escalated, besides the level of Bcl-2 was decreased after Cd exposure. A significant increase in histopathological damages after Cd administration is a clear indication of liver damage. However, co-treatment of KF with Cd potential recovered all the damages and significantly reduced the biochemical and histological variations in rat liver. Overall results indicated that KF has efficient anti-oxidant properties, which mitigated Cd instigated hepatic damage in rats.