Quantitative Distribution Profile of Cadmium and Lead in Different Organs of Rats and Mitigation of their Accumulation Through Probiotic Treatment

ABSTRACT

Cadmium (Cd) and lead (Pb) are toxic heavy metals that can have severe adverse effect on human health and environment. Pb contamination remains a significant concern due to its persistence in the environment, while Cd primarily enters the environment through mining, contaminating water and soil. These metals have a propensity to accumulate within various organs by displacing the essential divalent cation Ca2+, which plays a crucial role in mammalian physiology. However, the pattern of accumulation is not uniform across different organs and can vary due to distinct processing mechanisms and affinities exhibited by heavy metals toward various organ systems. This present study aims to comprehensively assess the quantitative distribution of cadmium and lead within the organs of Wistar rats, who were administered 50 mg and 100 mg per kilogram of body weight, respectively, of Cd and Pb. Furthermore, the study employs a therapeutic and interventional approach to mitigate heavy metal toxicity by introducing two probiotic strains: Lactobacillus fermentum NCDC-400 and Lactobacillus rhamnosus NCDC-610. The group of Wistar rats receiving the probiotic treatment demonstrated a noteworthy reduction in the accumulation of Cd and Pb, accompanied by a significant improvement in antioxidant enzyme activities and histological features of liver and kidney.

KEYWORDS:

• Cadmium
• lead
• Wistar rat
• antioxidant enzymes
• probiotics

Acknowledgments

The author acknowledges the National Collection of Dairy Cultures for providing the probiotic strains for the study and the Indian Council of Medical Research for providing the Senior Research Fellowship grant.

Author Contribution

Omprakash: Conceptualization, Methodology, Investigation, Resources, Writing- Original draft Rohit Kumar: Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Visualization, Writing-Original Draft, Writing-Review and Editing Prashant Singh: Methodology, Writing-Original Draft, Writing-Review and Editing Poonam Devi: Methodology, Investigation Anuj Malik: Formal analysis, Resources, Writing-Original Draft Nitin Mahal: Methodology, Writing-Original Draft.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethical statement

All protocols for the study were approved by the Institutional Animal Ethics Committee (IAEC). Approval for this work was also obtained from the Institutional Animal Ethics Committee (Reg. No. 1705/GO/Re/L/13/CPCSEA), Livestock Research Centre (LRC), National Dairy Research Institute (ICAR-NDRI), Karnal -132,001 (Haryana), India. The In-vivo experiment was conducted in accordance with ARRIVE guidelines.

Additional information

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research.