Hepatoprotective effect of (Arachis hypogea L.) peanut skin extracts on CCL4 induced liver damage in mice

This study was carried out to evaluate the hepato-protective property of (Arachis hypogea L.) peanut skin extracts in CCl4 induced hepatotoxicity in mice. The antioxidant activity was measured utilizing 2, 2diphenyl-1-1 picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) radical scavenging capacity. The results showed that the methanolic extract was the highest free radical scavenging activity than the aqueous extract with values (92.34 +/- 0.45 and 87.62 +/- 0.44) respectively in 12 mg/mL compared to 89.61 +/- 0.34 for Butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT) and 93.25 +/- 0.06 for vitamin C, which means that the methanolic extract of peanut skin is superior to BHT. Furthermore, the total phenolic content was analyzed by using Folin-Ciocalteu method, the amount of total phenol in aqueous extract was15.32 +/- 0.45, 39.29 +/- 0.64 and 56.63 +/- 1.03 mg/g in 2, 6 and 10 mg/ml respectively, while the methanolic extract was 47.08 +/- 0.56, 68.40 +/- 1.18 and 85.35 +/- 0.62 mg/g respectively in the same concentrations. The hepato-protective effect of peanut skin extract was evaluated in CCl4 induced hepato-toxicity. The experiment was conducted in two methods: pretreatment groups and post-treatment groups. Mice were treated with 50 and 100 mg/kg of aqueous and methanolic peanut skin extracts for 35 days before being damaged by CCl4 (pre-treatment group), and the other groups (post-treatment groups) which the mice were injected with CCl4 and received 50 and 100 mg/kg of aqueous and methanolic peanut skin extracts for 35 days. Biochemical studies show that there is decrease in the levels of serum ALT, AST, ALP, MDA and increases in the levels of SOD with significant differences (p <0.01) when compared with the CCl4 treated group. The histo pathological examination of liver obtained from mice with administrated intraperitoneally 3 ml/kg CCl4 showed histopathological changes in the liver represented in fatty changes of excessive hepatocyte accumulation of fatty material, while when treated with 100 mg/kg of peanut extract revealed look like normal structure appearance of hepatic tissue and normal structure appearance but with few apoptotic cells.