Animals
Male and female Wistar rats used in this study were obtained from Laboratory Animal Center, SUT. Animals were acclimatized for 7 days prior to the experiments. The rats were housed in polypropylene cages, with free access to normal diet and water ad libitum. The rats were maintained at room temperature (25±0.5 °C), relative humidity 45–50 % and at 12-h light/dark cycle. All procedures in this study were approved and conducted according to guidelines of the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee, SUT. All efforts were made to minimize the number of rats used and their suffering.