Vanillylacetone

The hepatotoxicity of carbon tetrachloride is widely established, although due to the paucity of research, it is not as well-known as cardiotoxicity. This research investigates the cardiotoxic effects of carbon tetrachloride in Swiss albino mice through both in vivo and in silico methodologies. Vanillylacetone is a bioactive compound found in ginger, renowned for its potent therapeutic properties, including antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects. The present research was conducted on mice, and they were categorized into five groups (G1-G5). G1 served as a control, G2 experienced CCl₄-induced toxicity, G3 and G4 were pretreated with vanillylacetone in a dose of 50 and 100 mg/kg in conjunction with CCl₄, and G5 received only vanillylacetone (100 mg/kg) treatment. The results indicated that carbon tetrachloride markedly increased cardiotoxicity by elevating serum biomarkers, such as lactate dehydrogenase and creatinine kinase. Carbon tetrachloride was seen to elevate the TBARS content in cardiac tissue while diminishing antioxidant enzyme levels. Vanillylacetone is a strong antioxidant that protects the myocardium by reducing the damage that CCl₄ does to the heart muscle cells. Therefore, with the findings of the results and histopathological examination, we can conclude that the treatment with vanillylacetone demonstrated a strong therapeutic effect, leading to the normalization of all serum enzyme indicators, antioxidant enzymes, and cytokines. Computational analysis indicates high binding with cardioprotective pathway components responsible for oxidative stress and inflammatory modulation, such as the TGF-β1/Smad pathway (-4.59 kcal/mol) and the NF-κB signaling pathway (-5.67 kcal/mol). These interactions suggest that vanillylacetone directly modulates cardiac damage and repair processes by multifactorial means, involving both intrinsic antioxidant scavenging and pathway modulation.