Abstract
β-glucan is a well-known polysaccharide for its chemopreventive effect. This study aimed to evaluate the chemopreventive ability of β-glucan in somatic and germ cells through the dominant lethal and micronucleus assays, and its influence on the reproductive performance of male mice exposed to cyclophosphamide. The results indicate that β-glucan is capable of preventing changes in DNA in both germ cells and somatic ones. Changes in germ cells were evaluated by the dominant lethal assay and showed damage reduction percentages of 46.46% and 43.79% for the doses of 100 and 150 mg/kg. For the somatic changes, evaluated by micronucleus assay in peripheral blood cells in the first week of treatment, damage reduction percentages from 80.63-116.32% were found. In the fifth and sixth weeks, the percentage ranged from 10.20-52.54% and -0.95-62.35%, respectively. Besides the chemopreventive efficiency it appears that the β-glucan, when combined with cyclophosphamide, is able to improve the reproductive performance of males verified by the significant reduction in rates of post-implantation losses and reabsorption in the mating of nulliparous females with males treated with cyclophosphamide.
Highlights
Occupational exposure, exposure to environmental contaminants and therapeutic compounds are known to induce changes related to the development of infertility, cancer and abnormalities of offspring, amongst other factors (Anderson, 2005)
Experiments indicate that the abuse of alcohol, administration of cyclophosphamide and sodium arsenite may relate to changes in the offspring of parents where the males were exposed to the above xenobiotics (Jenkinson et al, 1987; Jenkinson and Anderson, 1990; Oliveira et al, 2005)
This polysaccharide is described as an important antimutagenic agent, with ability to increase fetal viability and reduce the rates of post-implantation loss and/or resorption, demonstrating an improvement in the performance of reproductive females. This molecule showed no ability to prevent congenital malformations induced by cyclophosphamide (Oliveira et al, 2009b). Taken this fact into consideration, this study aimed to investigate the antimutagenic activity of b-glucan, extracted from Saccharomyces cerevisiae in somatic cells of mice by means of the micronucleus assay in peripheral blood cell
Summary
Occupational exposure, exposure to environmental contaminants and therapeutic compounds are known to induce changes related to the development of infertility, cancer and abnormalities of offspring, amongst other factors (Anderson, 2005). As the male contributes half of the genetic information to the offspring, males can be examined as partly responsible for teratogenesis and adverse changes in offspring development. Among these changes, smoking in men, for example, is is reported as related to the development of tumors in their children (Sorahan et al, 1997a,b; Ji et al, 1997; Sorahan et al, 2001; Pang et al, 2003; Cordier et al, 2004; Anderson, 2005). Experiments indicate that the abuse of alcohol, administration of cyclophosphamide and sodium arsenite may relate to changes in the offspring of parents where the males were exposed to the above xenobiotics (Jenkinson et al, 1987; Jenkinson and Anderson, 1990; Oliveira et al, 2005)
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