**2.1. Animals and housing conditions**

All experiments were carried out on adult male of Muridae; *Meriones shawi* [31] originating from the south of Tunisia. The rodents were captured from non-polluted regions and kept in captivity in our breeding facility for two generations. The animals were put in single cages and housed in an air-conditioned room maintained at 25 ± 1°C at a relative humidity of 45 ± 10 %, with a 12 h dark-light cycle. The diet of the control group consisted of granular flour mixed with distilled water at the dose of 1 L /1.5 Kg of granular flour. Contaminated diets of treated animals consisted of granule flour mixed with a solution of cadmium chloride (CdCl2) at dose (1 g Cd/1L H2O/1.5 kg of granule flour) [32]. Food was given in the form of balls dried at 60 ° C for 72 hours. Water was supplied *ad libitum*.

Animals were randomly selected and divided into four groups. Eight animals, the first goup was used as control (C). Water was given *ad libitum*. Meriones of the second group (8 animals) received the same diet but were deprived of water (D-). The third group was treated with Cd in the form of CdCl2 (Cd) at dose (1 g Cd/1L H2O/1.5 kg of granule flour). The last group was also treated with CdCl2 at the same dose but was deprived water D+Cd.

For immunohistochemistry study, treatment period had lasted from eight days to two weeks. Each animal was put in a metabolic cage for eight days in order to collect feces and 24 h urine each day at the same time. Urine samples were collected on paraffin oil to prevent evaporation and measured in mL/day. Daily consumption of drinking water and food of each group were measured throughout the study. It was not possible to collect urine since the 10 days of dehydration.

All of the protocols were carried out in accordance with French standard ethical guidelines for laboratory animals (agreement 75-178, 5\_16\_2000).
