الفهرس 
INTRODUCTIONOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Asthma is a common inflammatory disease of the airways. It is characterized by reversible airflow obstruction and bronchospasm manifested through multiple reversible episodes of wheezing, coughing, chest tightness, and shortness of breath.
OVA-induced asthma is the most widely used model that pathologically and symptomatically resembles bronchial asthma in human.
The most common used drug classes of asthma medications are beta-2 adrenergic agonists, corticosteroids, and leukotriene modifiers. The effects of these drugs are not always satisfactory in clinical practice because of local or systemic side effects.
Natural products have gained a wide acceptance among the public and scientific community. Spirulina platensis, grows naturally in alkaline lakes, and it is a special formula consisting of active constituents, including minerals, vitamins and proteins, beta-carotene, tocopherols, and phenolic acids, exhibiting high anti-inflammatory and antioxidant activities. Further, the molecular therapeutic mechanism of spirulina is still debatable conflict in bronchial asthma especially when combined with pioglitazone.
So, the current study was conducted to evaluate the possible therapeutic effect of spirulina and pioglitazone separately and when combined on bronchial asthma through measuring IgE, inflammatory cells in BALF, NF-κβ, PPARγ and histopathological changes of OVA- induced asthma in rats.
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SUMMARY & CONCLUSION
The present study, a total number of 56 adult male albino rats, weighing approximately 150-180 g were used and subdivided randomly into 7 groups of 8 animals in each group. Three control groups of rats were used including normal, Al(OH)3 and CMC and spirulina control groups.
Asthma was induced in 4 groups by 1 mg OVA adsorbed on 20 mg Al(OH)3 gelatinous on days 0, 7, and 14. Then, they were challenged by intratracheal instillation with 1.1% OVA in 200 μL normal saline on day 21, 23 and 27.
The first group had no treatment. The second group was treated with pioglitazone alone in dose of 10mg/kg/day orally by gastric gavage from day 15 to gay 28. The third group was treated with spirulina in dose of 500mg/kg/day orally by gastric gavage from day 15 to day 28. The fourth group was treated with pioglitazone in combination with spirulina in the same previous doses.
The current study presented evidence that oral administration of pioglitazone and spirulina significantly attenuated OVA-induced asthma in rats, shown through significant reduction in IgE, inflammatory cells in BALF, NF-κβ, increase in PPARγ and improvement in asthmatic histopathological changes, as compared to OVA-asthma model group.
This study showed that pioglitazone and spirulina potentiate and synergize each other effect in treatment of asthma as combined therapy caused significant improvement over pioglitazone or spirulina alone.
In conclusion, the present work provided evidence that spirulina could be used in combination with other treatment modalities of bronchial asthma to improve the quality of life of patients, if sufficient clinical trials would be available.
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