Bratislava Medical Journal Vol.119, No.3, p.152-155, 2018

AIM: We aimed to study the effects of thymoquinone on erythrocyte deformability in an experimental model of sepsis given before or after the initiation of the sepsis model.
METHOD: The animals were grouped as (n = 6) control, nigella sativa, sepsis, sepsis group with administration of nigella sativa before sepsis development and sepsis group with nigella sativa administration after sepsis development. Cecal ligation and puncture model (CLP) was used to induce sepsis in the animals. The thymoquinone was given 1 hour before or after the CLP in the study groups with a dose of 500 mg·kg−1. Erythrocyte deformability and relative resistance was calculated.
RESULT: Relative resistance was increased in the sepsis groups when compared to the control group (p < 0.0001). Deformability index was increased in the sepsis group when compared to the other groups (p < 0.0001 in all groups).

Sepsis group with after nigella sativa groups deformability index was significantly different from the deformability index in control group (p = 0.002). The use of nigella sativa before the initiation of sepsis corrected the deformability index significantly and the results were comparable to the control group (p = 0.078).
CONCLUSION: Thymoquinone administration before induction of CLP was observed to have protective effects on these alterations in CLP sepsis (Tab. 1, Fig. 1, Ref. 26).