Background: CatSper genes are a novel family of four sperm-specific calcium channels, which indicate testis-specific expression patterns. Despite the crucial role of CatSper genes in the male reproduction, very little is known about the factors that regulate their expression.
Objective: The objective of this study was to investigate the effects of vitamin E treatment on the expression of CatSper 1 and CatSper 2 genes as well as sperm quality in the aged male mice.
Materials and methods: Twenty four 11-12 months old aged male mice and twenty four 2-3-months old young male mice were randomly divided into four groups. Control groups received no injection. The experimental groups of male mice were received intraperitoneal injection of 106 mg/kg vitamin E daily for 35 days. Left testis and cauda epididymides from each mouse were collected on the days 21, 28 and 35 following vitamin E treatment and were used for Real-Time PCR and immunohistochemistry. Also, sperm analysis was performed according to the WHO guidelines given for human sperm examination. Data were analyzed using SPSS software.
Results: Administration of vitamin E improved sperm parameters in the aged as well as young adult male mice. In addition, the expression of CatSper genes increased following vitamin E treatment. Also, intensity of signal for CatSper1 and CatSper2 increased in the head and middle piece of sperm in experimental group as compared to those of control ones.
Conclusion: The vitamin E treatment significantly improved the sperm quality, especially in terms of sperm motility, count and morphology rate. Furthermore, CatSper genes expression could be up-regulated by the vitamin E treatment. This article extracted from Ph.D. thesis. (Shabnam Mohammadi).
Keywords: Aging; CatSper; Mice; Sperm; Testis; Vitamin E.