and 5.99 mg/kg respectively. Arsenic containing capsules
were administered orally to each goat of T1, T2 and T3
groups whereas vitamin E capsules of 100 and 150 IU
doses were given to each goat of T2 and T3 groups,
respectively.
Blood samples were collected aseptically from jugular
vein of each animal using heparinized vacuitainer tube.
Immediately after collection plasma was separated by
centrifuging the whole blood samples at 840 g for 15 min
in a portable centrifuge machine. The heparinized plasma
samples were stored at -20C in storage vials and analyzed
subsequently. Total immunoglobulin was estimated
by precipitation method of McEwan and Fisher (1970).
Total antioxidant activity was measured by ferric reducing
antioxidant power assay of Benzie and Strain (1999) and
values were expressed as lmol/l of plasma. Erythrocyte
superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity was estimated in
haemolysate 1:10 as per the method described by Madesh
and Balasubramanian (1998) and expressed as U. Catalase
(CAT) activity in RBC hemolysate was estimated following
the method of Aebi (1984) and the values were
expressed as lmoles of H2O2 consumed/min/g Hb in blood.
Cell mediated immunity was calculated as stimulation
index (SI) during blastogenic response of lymphocyte
culture on stimulation with mitogen. The proliferative
response of lymphocyte was estimated using the colorimetric
3-(4-5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium
bromide (MTT) according to the procedure given by
Mosmann (1983).SI is a ratio of optical density of stimulated
and unstimulated cells. The data were analyzed using
two way repeated measures ANOVA with two factors i.e.,
different treatment groups and periods. All results were
compared to control animals, as well as to the arsenic
exposed animals, in order to elucidate the possible protective
effect of vitamin E supply on arsenic toxicity.
Tukey’s all pair wise multiple comparison tests have been
used to compare means between the different treatment
groups. The results were represented as mean ± SE in the
treatment and period interaction table mentioning the significance
level. The specific p values were mentioned in the
text for where significant difference was found.