Unilateral hyperthermic shocks to rat testis.

Abstract

It is well known that rigs or cryptorchids with abdominal testes are sterile (Crewe, 1922;Nordby, 1928). Further, in unilateral cryptorchidism, clinical as well as experimental, normal functioning of the abdominal testis is impaired; the nature of the damage is similar to that described for the bilaterally cryptorchid testis (see Kormano, H\l=a\rk\l=o\nen& Kontinen, 1964). Though testicular histology in response to hyperthermia has recently been investigated, biochemical, histochemical and cytochemical studies on the mammalian testis subjected to hyperthermia are few (see Collins & Lacy, 1969). No attempt has yet been made to study both testes from the same animal, where one is maintained at normal temperature and the other testis is subjected to heat. Comparative studies on normal and heat-treated testes from the same animal would supply direct information on whether the effects produced are local or whether some form of hormonal mechanism is involved in the impairment of spermatogenesis. Such information is a prerequisite before hyperthermia can be safely recommended as an effective agent for inducing male sterility. In the present studies, forty sexually mature, male, albino rats, each weighing 200 to 250 g, were used. After anaesthetizing with Nembutal (5 mg/100 g body weight), the two testes were pressed apart with a wooden rod and the left side of the scrotum of each animal was immersed in a water-bath maintained at 43\m=.\5\s=deg\C for 75 min, in five steps, each of 15 min duration. In order to counteract the possible dissipation of heat from the left testis, the right was kept cold by covering it repeatedly with cotton swabs immersed in cold water. These rats were killed after 21 days and their testes were removed, weighed and processed separately. Quantitative estimation of cholesterol was made according to the Liebermann-Burchard method (see Oser, 1965). The estimation of alkaline and acid phosphatases involved the use of the incubating media of Bodansky (1933) and of Shinowara, Jones & Reinhart (1942), respectively, and for the subsequent determination of inorganic phosphorus, the method of Fiske & SubbaRow (1925) was used. For histochemical analyses of alkaline and acid phosphatases, the tissue was fixed in 10% formalin at 4\s=deg\C and further treated according to Gomori (1964).