The Effect of Misoprostol on Serum Level of Testoster-one and Spermatogenesis Indices in Adult Male Mice

Background: There is good evidence that men with a low pros-taglandin E (PGE) concentration in their semen tend to be in-fertile and any drug which causes an increase in seminal PGE concentration might therefore be of use in the treatment of male infertility. Misoprostol is a synthetic PGE1 methyl analogue indicated for the prevention of gastric ulcers induced by non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. This study was conducted to investigate the effect of misoprostol on serum level of testoster-one and spermatogenesis indices in testes tissue of adult male mice.Materials and Methods: In this study, 20 adult male mice were divided into 4 groups including: control and three treatment groups which received 1, 10 and 100 µg/Kg/day for 40 consecutive days by oral gavage. At the end of experimental period, animals were anaesthetized and blood samples were directly taken from heart for measurement of testosterone and then testes were removed and fixed in 10% neutral buffered for-malin. Tissues were processed by standard paraffin embedding and tissue sections were stained with Weigert s iron hematoxy-lin and then tubular differentiation index (TDI), spermiogenesis index (SPI) and repopulation index (RI) as spermatogenesis indices were analyzed by light microscopy. Finally, one way ANOVA and Tukey s post hoc were performed by SPSS soft-ware and differences were considered to be statistically signifi-cant when P<0.05.Results: Results showed that low and mid doses of misopros-tol could not change serum level of testosterone, TDI, SPI and RI significantly compare to control group. It was also indicated that however high dose of misoprostol could not significantly change the serum level of testosterone but it increased TDI, SPI and RI significantly compare to control group (P<0.01).Conclusion: Based on our results it can be concluded that ad-ministration of misoprostol in high dose can improve male fer-tility by increasing spermatogenesis indices in germinal epithe-lium of seminiferous tubules.

Keywords:

Misoprostol , Prostaglandin E , Testosterone , Sper-matogenesis Indices , Testis