Table 1.

Various animal groups of the present study

No.	Abbreviations	Group	Aerosol exposure	Treatment
1	Ctrl	Control	Salin aerosol	-
2	PQ-L	Paraquat	PQ, 27 mg/m3	-
3	PQ-H		PQ, 54 mg/m3	-
4	CS-L	C. sativus	“	20 mg/kg/day
5	CS-H		“	80 mg/kg/day
6	Saf-L	Safranal	“	0.8 mg/kg/day
7	Saf-H		“	3.2 mg/kg/day
8	Pio-L	Pioglitazone	“	5 mg/kg/day
9	Pio-H		“	10 mg/kg/day
10	Pio + CS	Combination treated	“	5 + 20 mg/kg/day
11	Pio + Saf		“	5 + 0.8 mg/kg/day
12	Dexa	Dexamethasone	“	0.03 mg/kg/day

Animals were exposed to saline in control (Ctrl) group and to paraquat (PQ) aerosols in the other groups 8 times during 15 days (i.e. on days 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13 and 15), each time for 30 min by inhalation as previously described (22). PQ groups were treated with saline, 20 and 80 mg/kg/day hydro-alcoholic extract of C. sativus (CS-L and CS-H), 0.8 and 3.2 mg/kg/day safranal (Saf-L and Saf-H), (11, 13) 5 and 10 mg/kg/day pioglitazone (Pio-L and Pio-H), combination of low dose of the pioglitazone with the extract or safranal (Pio + CS and Pio + Saf) and dexamethasone (Dexa) for 16 days after the end of PQ exposure period (20), (n = 7 in each group). Pioglitazone was injected intraperitoneally (IP), but the extract, safranal and dexamethasone were administered by gavage similar to a previous study (24).