The purpose of the study was to determine how multi-vitamin deficiency affects xenobiotic-metabolizing enzyme (XME) activities in the rat liver. Vitamin levels and XME activities were studied in the livers of male Wistar rats who were fed for 4 weeks with semi-synthetic diets containing either adequate (100 % of recommended vitamin intake) levels of vitamins (control), or decreased vitamin levels (50 % or 20 % of recommended vitamin intake). The study results have shown that moderate vitamin deficiency (50 %) leads to a decrease of vitamin A levels only, and to a slight increase, as compared with the control, in the following enzyme activities: methoxyresorufin O-dealkylase (MROD) activity of CYP1 A2 - by 34 % (p < 0.05), UDP-glucuronosyl transferase - by 26 % (p < 0.05), and quinone reductase - by 55 % (p < 0.05). Profound vitamin deficiency (20 %) led to a decrease of vitamins A, E, B1, B2, and C, and enzyme activities in the liver: MROD - to 78 % of the control level (p < 0.05), 4-nitrophenol hydroxylase - to 74 % (p < 0.05), heme oxygenase-1 - to 83 % (p < 0.05), and quinone reductase - to 60 % (p < 0.05). At the same time, the UDP-glucuronosyl transferase activity and ethoxyresorufin O-dealkylase activity of CYP1A1, pentoxyresorufin O-dealkylase activity of CYP2B1/2 and 6β-testosterone hydroxylase, as well as the total activity of glutathione transferase did not differ from the control levels. The study has demonstrated that profound multi-vitamin deficiency is associated with a decrease in the expression of CYP1A2 and CYP3A1 mRNAs to 62 % and 79 %, respectively. These data indicated that a short-term but profound multi-vitamin deficiency in rats leads to a decrease in the activities and expression of the some XME that play an important role in detoxification of xenobiotics and metabolism of drugs and antioxidant protection.
Keywords: multi-vitamin deficiency; xenobiotic metabolizing enzyme gene expression; xenobiotic-metabolizing enzymes.