Study of Phenytoin Effect on the genes involved in glucose and lipid metabolism expression in liver: A mouse model study

Phenytoin as an anti-seizure medication, is useful for the prevention of tonic-clonic seizures and focal seizures. In this study we focused on the probable effects of Phenytoin drug on gene expression profile of liver related to lipid metabolism balance in mouse as a model. In this study, a group including 7 male mice of BALB/c were treated with phenytoin 3–5 mg/kg/day orally and a group including 7 male mice of BALB/c were took standard food. Liver tissue samples were isolated. Total RNA was extracted and cDNA was synthesized. Expression of Akt1, Leptin, Adipoq and GLUT4 genes was measured using Real-time RT-PCR method. Results showed an increase about 15 and 3 fold changes in Akt1 and Adipoq gene expression respectively in treatment group compare to control mice. Also, we detected decreasing in Leptin and GLUT4 genes expression in the mice treated with phenytoin drug. Several studies indicated that phenytoin can promote hyperglycemia in human and animal. We proposed here that this effects may resulted from an interference between the phenytoin drug and gene expression profile in liver. Decreasing of leptin level here may be a result of glucose level elevation in blood that can induce a satiety situation result in decrease of leptin production. It may that Akt1 gene expression is increased to compensate the low level of GLUT4 protein. We concluded that phenytoin is a relatively high-risk antiepileptic drug for obesity and metabolic syndrome, but more studies are needed

Evaluation of Antioxidant Capacity and Cotinine Levels of Saliva in Male Smokers and Non-smokers

Background: The cigarette compounds are associated with the increase in the incidence of oral cancer andprecancerous lesions. Salivary antioxidant system plays an important role in anti-carcinogenic capacity ofsaliva. Cotinine, a nicotine metabolite, has a longer half-life in comparison with nicotine and is a suitablemarker for exposure to cigarette smoke. This study aims to measure total antioxidant capacity (TAC) andcotinine level in saliva of smokers and non-smokers and compare salivary cotinine level and TAC in each grou.Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 32 smokers and 34 non-smokers were recruited by consecutivesampling from Department of Oral Medicine, School of Dentistry, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences,Mashhad, Iran. Salivary cotinine and TAC concentrations were determined using the enzyme-linkedimmunosorbent assay (ELISA) technique. For data analysis, correlation tests of Spearman, Mann-WhitneyU, and independent samples t-test were used.Findings: A significant difference was observed between the two groups in the mean cotinine level and in themean TAC (P = 0.015, P = 0.027, respectively). TAC showed a weak negative correlation with the cotininelevel, but the difference was not significant (P = 0.651).Conclusion: Antioxidants are of great importance to smokers because antioxidants are able to scavenge freeradicals found in cigarette smoke. According to the results of present study, the salivary TAC in smokers waslower than that of non-smokers, and the salivary cotinine level in smokers was higher than non-smokers.Therefore, smoking endangers the oral cavity health by reducing the salivary TAC. Further studies with ahigher sample size and other factors affecting the salivary TAC are needed for definitive comment