Vet World   Vol.12   November-2019  Article-1

Histopathological changes of acetaminophen-induced liver injury and subsequent liver regeneration in BALB/C and ICR mice

Background and Aim: Laboratory mice are widely used as a research model to provide insights into toxicological studies of various xenobiotic. Acetaminophen (APAP) is an antipyretic and analgesic drug that is commonly known as paracetamol, an ideal hepatotoxicant to exhibit centrilobular necrosis in laboratory mice to resemble humans. However, assessment of histopathological changes between mouse strains is important to decide the optimal mouse model used in APAP toxicity study. Therefore, we aim to assess the histomorphological features of APAP-induced liver injury (AILI) in BALB/C and Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) mice.

Materials and Methods: Twenty-five ICR mice and 20 BALB/C mice were used where five animals as control and the rest were randomly divided into four time points at 5, 10, 24 and 48 hours post-dosing (hpd). They were induced with 500 mg/kg APAP intraperitoneally. Liver sections were processed for hematoxylin-eosin staining and histopathological changes were scored based on grading methods.

Results: Intense centrilobular damage was observed as early as 5 hpd in BALB/C as compared to ICR mice, which was observed at 10 hpd. The difference of liver injury between ICR and BALB/C mice is due to dissimilarity in the genetic line-up that related to different elimination pathways of APAP toxicity. However, at 24 hpd, the damage was markedly subsided and liver regeneration had taken place for both ICR and BALB/C groups with evidence of mitotic figures. This study showed that normal liver architecture was restored after the clearance of toxic insult.

Conclusion: AILI was exhibited earlier in BALB/C than ICR mice but both underwent liver recovery at later time points. Keywords: acetaminophen, BALB/C, histopathology, institute of cancer research, liver injury, liver regeneration.

Keywords: acetaminophen, BALB/C, histopathology, institute of cancer research, liver injury, liver regeneration.

How to cite this article: Muhammad-Azam F, Nur-Fazila SH, Ain-Fatin R, Noordin MM, Yimer N (2019) Histopathological changes of acetaminophen-induced liver injury and subsequent liver regeneration in BALB/C and ICR mice, Veterinary World, 12(11): 1682-1688.

Received: 21-06-2019  Accepted: 11-09-2019     Published online: 04-11-2019

Corresponding author: Saulol Hamid Nur-Fazila   E-mail: nurfazila@upm.edu.my

DOI: 10.14202/vetworld.2019.1682-1688

Copyright: Muhammad-Azam, et al. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http:// creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.