Inhibition of TNF-α Oncogene Expression by Artemisia Annua L. Extract Against Pioglitazone Side Effects in Male Albino Mice.

Pioglitazone (Actos) is one of the most recent oral antidiabetic drugs for treating the second type of diabetes mellitus as a common chronic and lifelong disease, but with harmful side effects. The objective of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of Artemisia annua L. extract against the Actos drug side effects in the male albino mice. In present study, the use of Actos drug alone induced hepatotoxicity, renal inflammation, hematological disorders and bladder cancer, which are manifested by biochemical abnormalities and histopathological changes, moreover, the severity of toxicity depends on its dose. In contrast, the concurrent treatment with both Actos drug (45 mg/kg) and Artemisia extract (4 g/kg) was effective against the harmful side effects of the Actos drug. Where, the biochemical, hematological and histopathological investigations showed that the hepatotoxicity, renal inflammation, hematological disorders and histopathological changes were improved using combination of Actos and Artemisia extract. In addition, the results of TNF-ɑ oncogene expression levels in bladder tissues were significantly decreased by about 99.99% using the mix of both Actos drug and Artemisia extract. In conclusion, these findings reveal that the Artemisia annua extract on TNF-ɑ oncogene expression level is very significant and effective natural product against harmful side effects of pioglitazone which associated with an increased risk of incident bladder cancer among people, but for application more studies must be achieved in that field.