Objective: To investigate the damage of procymidone to penile, testis and sperm in adolescent male mice.
Methods: 4-week-old male ICR mice were allocated randomly to the treatment groups and the control group, with 8 mice in each group. Procymidone was administered to mice by gavage with dose 50 mg/kg(low dose), 100 mg/kg and 200 mg/kg, while the control group was given only an equal volume of soybean oil. On the 11 th days, the mice were sacrificed by spinal dislocation, their body masses were weighed, and the anogenital distance(AGD), testicular volume and penis length were measured. Furthermore the weight of the testes, epididymis and penis were weighed, the organ coefficients were calculated, and then a testis on one side and 1/2 penis tissue were fixed in 4% paraformaldehyde and used for histology analysis. The testis on the other side and the remaining 1/2 penis were used to detect androgen content and Caspase-3, Caspase-9, Caspase-12 and Bax gene expression. At the same time, one epididymis was randomly selected to detect sperm motility, density and morphology.
Results: The weight, penis length and testicular volume of mice in each experimental group did not change significantly, while the weight of testes and epididymis and testicular and epididymal coefficients of mice in the high-dose group decreased significantly(P<0. 05). The testis seminiferous tubules of every treatment group showed different degrees of degeneration, spermatogenic cell damage, and decreased number of luminal sperm. Meanwhile, medium and high dose treatment groups showed hyperplasia of testicular stromal cells. However, there was no significant pathologic change in penile tissue in every treatment group. The sperm density of mice in the middle and high dose groups was lower than that of the control group(P<0. 05), and the sperm deformity rate in the two groups was significantly higher than that of the control group(P<0. 01), while the sperm motility of every dose treatment group was lower than that of the control(P<0. 05). The testosterone in the testis of the middle and high dose groups were high than the control(P<0. 001), while there was no statistically significant difference of the testosterone among all the groups in the penis(P>0. 05). In addition, the expression of pro-apoptotic genes Caspase-3, Caspase-9, Caspase-12 and Bax in testis tissues of the high-dose group were significantly increased(P<0. 05).
Conclusion: Procymidone can cause damage to the structure and function of testes, reduce sperm quality, and increase the expression of certain pro-apoptotic genes in adolescent male mice.
Keywords: adolescent male mice; apoptosis; procymidone; sperm; testis.