Effect of melatonin on the liver histophysiology of adolescent rats exposed to alcohol

Abstract

The present study evaluated whether melatonin administered during adolescence can prevent the deleterious effects produced by alcohol on the liver. Thirty albino female rats (Rattus norvegicus albinus), 40 days old, virgins, weighing approximately 150±10g, from the Wistar lineage and were divided into the following groups: I – Adolescent rats that did not receive alcohol and euthanized at 60 days of life; II – Adolescent rats subjected to chronic alcohol consumption and euthanized at 60 days of life; III – Adolescent rats subjected to chronic alcohol consumption and simultaneously treated with melatonin, and euthanized at 60 days of life. The collected organs underwent histological processing and to obtain the results, morphometric, histopathological and histochemical analyzes were performed. Alcohol was administered by gavage. intragastric injection at a dosage of 3 g/Kg of ethyl alcohol in the rats of groups II and III for 20 days. Melatonin was administered in daily injections of 0.8 mg/Kg, always at the beginning of the night, intraperitoneally for 20 days. When analyzing the weight of the animals, no significant difference was observed between the groups. The animals in group II presented alterations in the livers such as congestion of the centrilobular vein, hepatocellular ballooning, microgoticular steatosis, leukocyte infiltrate, several pyknotic nuclei in the livers, increase in lobular parenchyma and reduction in non-lobular parenchyma, greater deposition of collagen and reduction of glycogen. Melatonin treatment prevented all these changes. With this, we can conclude that melatonin has great therapeutic potential in the prevention of liver damage in adolescent rats subjected to moderate alcohol consumption, in addition to positive effects on the deposition of collagen and glycogen in the liver.