Uboh, FE; Asuquo, EN; Eteng, MU; Akpanyung, EO
Endosulfan is known to be one of the highly toxic agricultural pesticides commonly used in our societies. With the widespread use of endosulfan in agriculture, human beings are most likely to be exposed to it, either orally by eating endosulfan-contaminated foods or by nose and whole body inhalation in the farms during its application. In this study, we assessed the route-of-exposure-dependent effect of endosulfan on renal functions in male rats, using serum creatinine, urea, Blood Urea Nitrogen (BUN), uric acid, Na+, Cl- and K+, as well as histopathological assay. Eighteen mature male albino Wistar rats (200±20 g), divided into three groups of six rats each, were used in this study. The 20 mg kg-1 body weight of endosulfan was daily administered orally to one group of rats while another group was exposed to ungraded concentration of endosulfan by nose and whole body inhalation exposure method, (4 h daily, 6 days per week), for 30 days. It was observed from the results of this study that exposure to endosulfan by both oral and inhalation routes produced a significant increase (p<0.05) in serum creatinine, urea, BUN, uric acid and K+ and a significant decrease (p<0.05) in serum Na+ and Cl- levels, compared, respectively to the control. Also, microscopic examinations showed that both routes of exposure to endosulfan exhibited severe a histopathological damage to the renal tissues. These observations indicated that exposure to endosulfan may be a risk factor for nephrotoxicity in rats, independent of the route of exposure.