Dear Editor,
I read with great interest a recently published article entitled “Effects of black cumin seed oil on oxidative stress and expression of membrane-cytoskeleton linker proteins, radixin, and moesin in streptozotocin-induced diabetic rat liver” in Hepatology Forum.[1] The authors presented the results of an experimental diabetic study by considering the distribution and expression level of membrane cytoskeleton linker proteins radixin and moesin. They also reported a possible protective effect of black cumin seed oil on the mentioned diabetic animal model and blood oxidative stress status.
First of all, I appreciate the authors for their valuable efforts to share these important findings with the readers. However, I have noticed some limitations that are not clearly highlighted in the limitations of the study. The authors mentioned the missing out of ezrin as a limitation of their paper. As a traditional application, life scientists usually use either β-actin or GAPDH as an internal control in Western blotting to compare the expression level of the protein of interest between groups. The authors used β-actin as an internal control. Literature reports that ezrin, radixin, and moesin (ERM) protein family members have cytoskeletal regulation activity by binding cytosolic actin to the plasma membrane. Several previous studies also reported disrupted β-actin as a result of oxidative stress.[2] Therefore, I believe that it would be better to choose GAPDH as an internal control. When I consider the microscopic findings, the immunohistochemical analysis of this study is very fascinating. For this reason, I appreciate the authors, but the limitations of this study can be enlarged when considering microscopic analyses. For example, besides the lack of data on ezrin, another ERM protein family-related cytoskeleton regulator protein merlin can be highlighted as a limitation of this study.[3] At least, I believe the findings of the merlin could be investigated to improve the output of this article.
When the biochemical analyses are evaluated, it is possible to reach similar limitations. The authors investigated the antioxidant potential of black cumin seed oil on the liver by considering MDA and GSH levels alone. The results of these analyses are very meaningful, but cytoskeleton alteration in oxidative stress is also regulated by Ca2+-dependent mechanisms.[4] Therefore, better biochemical analyses could have been used to confirm the antioxidant potency of the black cumin seed oil in experimental diabetes.
Footnotes
Peer-review: Externally peer-reviewed.
Conflict of Interest: The author have no conflict of interest to declare.
Financial Disclosure: The author declared that this study has received no financial support.
References
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