Investigation of the Effects of Chronic L-Arginine Supplementation on Paraoxonase-1 Activity in High-Cholesterol Diet-Induced Hypercholesterolemia Model in Rats

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Investigation the effects of chronic oral L-arginine supplementation in hypercholesterolemic rats on serum paraoxonase-1 activity, lipid profile, and oxidative stress levels were aimed in this study. Adult Wistar albino male rats were randomly selected and divided into 4 groups equally (n=9), named as control group (C), L-arginine group (LA), hypercholesterolemia group (HC) and hypercholesterolemia+L-arginine group (HC+LA). The experimental model was performed by feeding subjects with a 3% cholesterol diet for 8 weeks. L-arginine supplementation was performed by containing 3% L-arginine into the drinking water of the subjects. At the end of the study, serum lipids, paraoxonase1 (PON1) activity, and malondialdehyde (MDA) levels of all animals were measured, and the atherogenic index (ATI) was calculated. Atherosclerotic lesions were evaluated histopathologically using aort tissue specimens. It was found that serum PON1, MDA and lipids as well as ATI and PON1/HDL ratio increased in the HC, whereas in the HC+LA, these parameters were decreased statistically significantly compared to the HC. Moreover, a statistically significant increase was found in serum TG, VLDL and PON1 levels in the LA compared to the C. PON1 and MDA levels were found to be strongly correlated in a negative way. 8 weeks of L-arginine administration found to be effective on decreasing ATI, LDL and oxidative status of rats in hypercholesterolemia group, conversely, it didn’t display significant difference for PON1 and HDL levels. In addition, it was determined in the histopathological examination that l-arginine supplementation alleviated the changes of vascular structures due to hypercholesterolemia.

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