Zinc Concentration In The Serum And Liver Homogenate Of Normal And Monosodium Glutamate Intoxicated Rats Co-Treated With Artemether-Lumenfantrine:- Chukwu Ebere M

ABSTRACT

Monosodium glutamate (MSG) commonly known as Ajino moto, is the sodium salt ofthe non-essential amino acid glutamic acid (Ewaka., 2007). It has a flavourenhancing effect and for this reason it is added to foods. Artemether-lumenfantrine is an Artemisinin derivatives that possess an endoperoxide bridge in their structure which is crucial to its antimalarial activity (Awofisayo et al.,2Q\Q). The endoperoxide bridge is very unstable in the presence of heme iron and malaria parasites are rich in heme. This bridge is broken down upon interaction with intraparasitic heme in the digestive vacuole leading to the release of free radicals. These free radicals are toxic to the parasite and damage specific intracellular targets possibly by alkylation (Meshnick, 2002). Another suggested mode of action of artemisinins is the inhibition of sarcoplasmicendoplasmic reticulum Ca2+-ATPase ortholog SERCA known as PfATP6 (Eckstein-Ludwig et al., 2003, Valderramos et al., 2010).