Administration of high dose of methamphetamine has detrimental effects on sperm parameters and DNA integrity in mice

Background: Methamphetamine (MA) was shown to have harmful effects on malereproductive system.Objective: To investigate probable effects of daily administration of MA on spermparameters and chromatin/DNA integrity in mouse.Material and Methods: Thirty-five NMRI male mice were divided into five groupsincluding low, medium, and high dosage groups which were injectedintraperitoneally with 4, 8 and 15 mg/kg/day for 35 days, respectively. Normalsaline was injected in sham group and no medications were used in control group.Then, the mice were killed and caudal epididymis of each animal was cut and placedin Ham’s F10 medium for sperm retrieval. To evaluate sperm chromatinabnormalities, the aniline blue, toluidine blue and chromomycine A3 were used. Forsperm DNA integrity and apoptosis, the acridine orange, sperm chromatindispersion, and TUNEL assay were applied. For sperm morphology, Papanicolaoustaining was doneResults: Normal morphology and progressive motility of spermatozoa decreased inmedium and high dosage groups in comparison with the control group (p=0.035).There was a significant increase in rate of aniline blue, toluidine blue, andchromomycine A3 positive spermatozoa in high dosage group. In a similar manner,there was an increase in rates of acridine orange, TUNEL and sperm chromatindispersion positive sperm cells in high dosage group with respect to others.Conclusion: MA abuse in a dose-dependent manner could have detrimental effectson male reproductive indices including sperm parameters and spermchromatin/DNA integrity in mice.

Keywords:

Methamphetamine , Apoptosis , Sperm , Sperm chromatin