Bundit Wannasuphaphol. Pathologic study of red cell changes in thalassemic mice . Doctoral Degree(Biochemistry). Mahidol University. : Mahidol University, 2005.
Pathologic study of red cell changes in thalassemic mice
Abstract:
β-Thalassemia/HbE disease is prevalent in Southeast Asia. The genetic defect in β-globin gene leads to imbalanced globin synthesis and to the production of excess α-globin chains, which causes defective erythroid precursor, ineffective erythropoiesis, and a shortened red cell survival. Heme, released from α-globin degradation, can potentially generate oxygen free radicals leading to the damage of several membrane components. Increased intestinal iron absorption, resulting from marrow expansion, is an important cause of progressive iron deposition in the tissues. The murine model carrying a whole locus of hemoglobin E mutation was generated. Further breeding with β-knockout mice resulted in a double heterozygous genotype and finally β-thalassemia/HbE rescued mice were produced. The rescued mice expressed only slight anemia but red cell morphology, mean corpuscular hemoglobin, red cell distribution width, and reticulocyte count were similar to those of the β-knockout mice. Oxidative stress in erythrocytes was significantly elevated whereas there were no changes of phosphatidylserine exposing red cells and red cell vesicles. Exponential reduction of red cell survival, similar to that of β-knockout mice, was found. Pathologic study revealed growth retardation, splenomegaly, and iron overload in major organs, such as liver, spleen, kidneys, and bone marrow. These results indicated that the β-thalassemia/HbE rescued murine model is a good model for testing antioxidants and newly developed iron chelators. This is the first time that curcumin has been tested as an antioxidant in heterozygous β-thalassemic mice. The results showed that, after low-dose treatment of curcumin, there were no changes in oxidative stress and RBC vesicles except slightly decreased PS-exposing RBCs. Further experiment was performed with high-dose curcumin to observe antioxidative effect. Hematologic study demonstrated that the percentage of reticulocytes was decreased in wash-out groups, both the wild-type and β-knockout mice. The shortened RBC survival could be observed in the treated wild type group. The percentage of PS-exposing RBCs was decreased in treated and wash-out groups of both mouse genotypes. However, no pathologic changes occurred and iron deposit in tissues was not different between treated and control groups