Acute effects of microcystins exposure on the transcription of antioxidant enzyme genes in three organs (liver, kidney, and testis) of male Wistar rats.

Microcystins (MCs) induce the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in various tissues in mammals, whereas the endogenous antioxidant enzymes are responsible to scavenge the ROS. ROS can modulate the antioxidant enzyme activities by regulating the mRNA levels. The present study was undertaken to find out the relationship between the transcriptional alterations of antioxidant enzymes and MCs stimulation in rats. The time-dependent changes of relative transcription abundance of catalase (CAT), Mn-superoxide dismutase (Mn-SOD), Cu,Zn-superoxide dismutase (Cu,Zn-SOD), glutathione reductase (GR), glutathione peroxidase (GPx), and gamma-glutamylcysteine synthetase (γ-GCS) were investigated in three organs (liver, kidney, and testis) of male Wistar rats injected intravenously (i.v.) with 80 μg MC-LR(equivalent)/kg body weight using the quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR) method. We found that MCs could affect the transcriptional activities of these antioxidant enzymes in liver, kidney, and testis of MCs-treated rats and we speculated the possible causation of the transcriptional change. The altered transcription of antioxidant enzymes may play an important role in counteracting the potential deleterious effects of elevated oxidative stress induced by MCs, and this will provide us new insights into the possible role of antioxidant enzymes in the toxicological mechanisms of MCs at molecular level.