Abstract
The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of methanolic extract of plants from the north of Mexico, on testicular morphology and spermatic quality in Wistar rats. Methanolic extracts were orally administered to 4 experimental groups (n=6) of rat for 30 days; a control group not treated with plant extract was included. All animals were sacrificed 24 h after the last dose. Samples of testicles were collected, fixed, processed by histological technique and embedded in paraffin blocks. Histological sections were stained with H&E, Masson's trichrome and histochemical PAS reaction with diastase. Results of the groups treated with methanolic extract of Tagetes lucida, Cynodon dactylon, Lippia graveolens HBK, and Opuntia ficus-indica testicle samples demonstrated epithelial detachment and cell fragmentation, an apparent decrease in the diameter of seminiferous tubules, with large empty spaces between them and areas with fragmentation of basal membrane. Sperm quality analysis (concentration, motility and viability) showed a significant decrease of these spermatic parameters in all treated groups. In conclusion, this paper demonstrated for the first time that methanolic extracts from plants of the north of Mexico, have toxic effect on testicle and affects spermatic parameters of Wistar rats. Key words: Plants, testicle, spermatic quality, methanolic extract, Wistar rat, toxicity.
Highlights
In traditional medicine, plants have been used for hundreds of years to treat a wide variety of health-relatedThese alternatives can associate scientific literature and popular knowledge of plants with spermicidal effect, to suggest a regulator method of fertility from plant origin which retains spermicides advantages without cytotoxicity against epithelial cells (Upadhyay et al, 1993; Kumar et al, 2012)
The decrease in sperm quality was more pronounced in groups treated with L. graveolens HBK and O. ficus-indica, this correlates with the degree of damage to the testicular epithelium observed in histopathological sections
The damage observed in testicular epithelium, as well as the decrease in sperm quality were not in the same intensity in the different study groups; they were more marked in groups treated with L. graveolens HBK and O. ficus-indica, and less evident in group treated with C. dactylon
Summary
Plants have been used for hundreds of years to treat a wide variety of health-related. These alternatives can associate scientific literature and popular knowledge of plants with spermicidal effect, to suggest a regulator method of fertility from plant origin which retains spermicides advantages without cytotoxicity against epithelial cells (Upadhyay et al, 1993; Kumar et al, 2012). The objective of this study was to evaluate by morphological methods, the effect of methanolic extracts of T. lucida, O. ficus-indica, C. dactylon, and L. graveolens HBK, from the North of Mexico on testicle of male Wistar rats
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