Quantitative variations in ovarian follicles of female Sprague Dawley rats after exposure to low dose gamma radiation

Abstract

In the present experiment, an attempt was made to assess the genetic risk of low dose radiations in mammals. For this purpose female Sprague Dawley rats, 11-12 weeks old, were irradiated with whole body Co 60 gamma rays in three fractionated doses of 0.10 Gy (cumulative dose 0.30 Gy) given at an interval of one month at two different dose-rates (0.00368 Gy/min. and 0.0589 Gy/min.). Ovaries were studied for quantitative evaluation of follicles at 1, 4, 12, 28 and 52 weeks after last fractionated exposure. Quantitation revealed lower number of ovarian follicles in irradiated animals than in controls. The follicular number decreased with the advancement of time after last exposure (i.e. 2 months) and reached a peak level on 28 weeks. After that the recovery was evident but the number remained below 25% of total follicles even at 52 weeks autopsy interval, which indicated an irreversible damage in ovarian tissue. Primary follicles were found to be the most radiosensitive among the various types of follicles. The highest loss in these follicles was noted at 12 weeks after exposure with the high dose-rate, where only 10.61% of them were scored. Dose-rate exhibited an inverse relationship with the number of surviving follicles. At the higher dose-rate (0.0589 Gy / min.), depletion in the total follicular number was significantly higher than at the low dose-rate (0.00368 Gy/min.) used.