*Corresponding Author: Girish Waghmare, Email: girish_biophy@rediffmail.com, Phone No: +91- 9637624589 ISSN 0976 – 3333 ORIGINAL RESEARCH ARTICLE Available Online at www.ijpba.info International Journal of Pharmaceutical & Biological Archives 2011; 2(5):1415-1418 Lymphocyte Variation in Peripheral Blood of Mice with Low Level Gamma Irradiation Girish Waghmare*, Ramrao Chavan, Dhanraj Mane *Department of Zoology, DR.B.A.M. University, Aurangabad. India Received 07 Jul 2011; Revised 03 Oct 2011; Accepted 12 Oct 2011 ABSTRACT Series of studies were conducted to explore the effects of gamma irradiation to peripheral blood of male Swiss albino mice. Radioprotection was evaluated by the ability of Liv 52 to reduce the lethality produced by cobalt-60 gamma radiation. Mice were treated by oral gavage once daily for seven consecutive days with Liv 52 (500 mg/kg body weight) prior to radiation.Male Swiss albino mice were exposed to 1 and 3 Gy of whole-body gamma irradiation in the presence (experimental) and absence (control) of a herbomineral formulation of Liv.52. Quantitative variations in the number of total leukocytes count (TLC), lymphocytes and neutrophils were scored in peripheral blood at various time intervals between on the day of exposure to 28 days. At 1Gy dose, depression in TLC was noticed till day 1, whereas in higher doses until day 5 with a sharpness in first 24 hrs. Prior administration of Liv.52 significantly prevented the depletion of leukocytes count and initiated recovery towards normal at 28 days in experimental animal. The behaviour of neutrophils was reciprocal as they showed rise till day 1 followed by gradual decline up to day 5 in control (without liv 52) as well as in experimental group with both the irradiation doses. It is noted that liv 52 decreases the direct cell killing against gamma radiation may be due to by increasing the cellular glutathione (GSH) level [16] and restores early recovery of lymphocyte in drug treated animal. Key words: Differential leukocytes count, Mice, Liv.52, Gamma Rays, Radioprotection. INTRODUCTION The twentieth century has seen an increasing use of nuclear energy in industrial, medical, engineering and scientific research that have raised the problem of radiation hazards to living beings. Thus, the development of effective radio protectors and radio recovery drugs is of great importance in view of their potential application during both planned (i.e., radiotherapy) and unplanned radiation exposure (i.e., in the nuclear industry, natural background radiation).Radiation- induced hematological alterations have been extensively studied. Lymphocytes are among the most radiosensitive cells in the living organisms. They are involved in immunological responses and are of immense interest to researchers and clinicians, because of their extreme sensitivity to ionizing radiation [5] . Extensive research has been carried out in recent years to find a suitable chemical radioprotective agent, which can be administered safely before radiation exposure. Several chemical compounds like cystein [14] , cysteamin [1] , 2-mercaptopropionyl glycine [18] MATERIALS AND METHODS have been known to afford a high degree of protection against radiation in mammals, but most of them were found toxic at their optimum protective dose level. Liv.52 was revealed to be a non-toxic, hepatoprotective as well as radio protective drug. This study has done to investigate the protective efficacy of this drug against radiation-induced quantitative variations in differential leucocytes count of peripheral blood in mice Animals Young adult male Swiss albino mice of 6-8 weeks age weighing about 20 ± 2 gms were selected from a closely bred colony maintained on standard mice feed (procured from Hindustan Lever Ltd., India) and water ad libitum.. The selected mice were divided in two different groups. One group of animals was orally given a 5% dextrose solution once a day for 7 days before irradiation to serve as control while the other group received 500 mg/kg body weight of Liv.52 powder (The Himalaya Herbal Drug Co. Mumbai) dissolved in