Animals were acclimatized to the animal facility for a week on standard rat chow
and allowed water ad libitum under controlled conditions of 25 ± 2 C temperature,
50 ± 15% relative humidity and normal photoperiod (12 h dark and light). Four
groups of rats entered the study after acclimatization (Fig. 1). They were fed on
either normal diet (control and NaAs groups) or FXO diet (AsFXO and FXO groups).
After 14 days, rats in the two groups (NaAs and AsFXO) were injected with sodium
arsenate (NaAs) in distilled water intraperitoneally (20 mg/kg bwt/day) every day
for 4 days (four sodium arsenate injections in total). The dose of sodium arsenate