Male infertility is a serious global medical and social issue demanding more specific and effective treatments. In this study, we generated a male infertility rat model using adenine induction to study the effects of certain micronutrients on reproduction. Fifty male SD rats were used in the study, and thirty of them received daily intra-gastric administration of 300 mg/kg adenine for four weeks. The thirty adenine treated mice were evenly divided into 3 groups to receive intra-gastric administration of micronutrient mixture of vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin E, Zinc, and selenium (micronutrient group), normal saline (model control group), and methyl testosterone solution (androgen group). The other twenty rats used were normal male SD rats that were evenly divided into two groups to receive intra-gastric administration of normal saline (normal control group) and micronutrient mixture first then adenine 40 min later (micronutrient prevention group). After four weeks of micronutrient and other treatments, all rats were sacrificed for analyses. Compared with those in the model control group, the rats in the micronutrient group showed significantly improved physical signs, significantly increased body weights, significantly increased testis index, significantly increased sperm counts and motility, significantly decreased sperm malformation, and significantly repaired testis tissue. Compared with those in the model control group, the rats in the micronutrient group showed significantly decreased FSH levels and recovered LH and testosterone levels. The rats in the micronutrient prevention group did not show significant differences in sperm counts, sperm motility, sperm malformation, and hormonal levels from those in the normal control group. The findings from this study provide evidence for the potential application of micronutrients in male infertility treatments.
Keywords: Micronutrients; adenine; infertile rats; reproduction.