Investigations were conducted to evaluate the ability of two chelators, desferrioxamine (DFO), and deferiprone (1,2-dimethy1-3-hydroxypyride-4-one, L1), for the excretion of vanadium after a period of administration of vanadium salts in 6-week-old male Wistar rats. Immediately after 60 days of vanadium administration, the rats received chelators (L1, DFO or L1 + DFO) for a period of 1 week. Chelators were given orally (L1), intraperitoneally (DFO), or both to different groups of rats at two different dosage levels. After chelation therapy, animals were sacrificed by exsanguination from abdominal aorta. Blood, kidney, liver, and heart samples were collected and prepared for determination of vanadium and iron concentrations by graphite furnace and flame atomic absorption spectroscopy (GF AAS, and F AAS) methods, respectively. These chelators significantly enhanced the urinary and biliary excretion of vanadium and restored the altered levels of iron. Furthermore, the hypothesis that these two known chelators might be more effective in removing vanadium from the body as a combined treatment than as monotherapy also was tested in this study. Although there is no significant difference between these two chelators in reducing the vanadium concentration, combination therapy (L1 + DFO) may cause higher efficacy and lower toxicity compared with monotherapies. Collectively, the results indicate that the designed procedure might be useful for preliminary in vivo testing of the efficiency of a chelating agent. However, our findings regarding the efficacy of combination therapy should be confirmed in more experiments. This preliminary study does not provide all answers to the magnitude of the efficiency of chelating agents in vanadium toxicity, and thus, further research is warranted.
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