Determination of aluminium induced metabolic changes in mice liver: A Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy study

• FTIR spectra determine the aluminium toxicity induced metabolic changes in liver tissue.
• FTIR results revealed the quantitative and qualitative alterations of major biochemical constituents.
• Results of the FTIR study were found to be in agreement with biochemical studies.

In this study, we made a new approach to evaluate aluminium induced metabolic changes in liver tissue of mice using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy analysis taking one step further in correlation with strong biochemical evidence. This finding reveals the alterations on the major biochemical constituents, such as lipids, proteins, nucleic acids and glycogen of the liver tissues of mice. The peak area value of amide A significantly decrease from 288.278 ± 3.121 to 189.872 ± 2.012 between control and aluminium treated liver tissue respectively. Amide I and amide II peak area value also decrease from 40.749 ± 2.052 to 21.170 ± 1.311 and 13.167 ± 1.441 to 8.953 ± 0.548 in aluminium treated liver tissue respectively. This result suggests an alteration in the protein profile. The absence of olefinicCH stretching band and CO stretching of triglycerides in aluminium treated liver suggests an altered lipid levels due to aluminium exposure. Significant shift in the peak position of glycogen may be the interruption of aluminium in the calcium metabolism and the reduced level of calcium. The overall findings exhibit that the liver metabolic program is altered through increasing the structural modification in proteins, triglycerides and quantitative alteration in proteins, lipids, and glycogen. All the above mentioned modifications were protected in desferrioxamine treated mice. Histopathological results also revealed impairment of aluminium induced alterations in liver tissue. The results of the FTIR study were found to be in agreement with biochemical studies and which demonstrate FTIR can be used successfully to indicate the molecular level changes.

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