Effects of Baicalein on Oxidative Stress and Apoptotic Process in Formaldehyde-Induced Lung Damage

Aim: In this study, the effect of baicalein (BAI) on lung damage caused by formaldehyde (FA) is aimed to be examined via immunohistochemistry and gene expression techniques. Materials and Methods: Within the scope of the study, 24 male Wistar-Albino rats were provided from experimental animal unit. Animals were divided into three groups as two experimental and a control group, using the simple randomization method. Control group received saline intraperitoneally for 14 days, the FA group received 10 mg/kg dose of FA intraperitoneally for 14 days and the FA+BAI group received 10 mg/kg dose of FA intraperitoneally and 200 mg/kg BAI daily for 14 days. At the end of the experimental process, lung tissue samples of rats were taken and analyzed in terms of gene expression and immunohistochemistry. Results: FA group had high degree of histopathologic lung damage, immunochemically low endothelial nitric oxide synthase (NOS) and high inducible NOS expression. The FA+BAI group had similar findings with the FA group and did not display significant improvement on pathological findings (p<0.05). Superoxide dismutase and catalase expression levels were significantly increased in the FA+BAI group compared to the FA group (p<0.05). Compared with the control group, it was determined that Cytochrome-c expression increased in both FA group and FA+BAI group (p<0.05). Conclusion: As a result, BAI treatment has no positive effects on FA-induced lung tissue damage. FA induces apoptosis in rat lungs via the intrinsic mitochondrial pathway and BAI has no positive effects on apoptosis at the expression level. However, our study reveals that BAI has an ameliorating effect on oxidative stress parameters at the expression level