The Effect of Methanolic Extract of Iranian Oak Fruit on Apoptotic Index and Caspase 3 Expression in Epididymis in Male Adult Diabetic Rats

Our previous studies indicated that methanolic extract of Iranian oak (MEIO) possess many biological activities and can decrease blood glucose level and improve quality indices of sperm in diabetic male rats. This study was conducted to evaluate the effect of MEIO on diabetes induced apoptosis in epididymis.Twenty adult male Wistar rats were divided into 4 groups include control, sham, diabetic and treatment groups. Hyperglycemia was induced by high fat diet and 35 mg/kg streptozotocin. Sham and treatment groups received 100mg/kg/day total MEIO by oral gavage for 40 consecutive days. Finally, animals were euthanized and right epididymis was removed and tissue samples were frozen in liquid nitrogen and stored at -80°C until the evaluation of Caspase3 expression by real-time PCR. Other parts of tissues were fixed in 10%neutral buffered formalin and after standard paraffin embedding processes apoptotic index (AI) was determined by nonradioactive in situ end labeling method using TUNEL technique in tissue sections. Data analyzed by one way ANOVA and Tukey s post hoc.The results showed that induction of diabetes significantly increased the AI and Caspase3 expression than the control group. In the sham group, no significant difference was observed in these variables compared to control group. In the treatment group, the AI and Caspase3 expression significantly were decreased compared to the diabetic group (p<0.01), but had no significant difference with control group. It can be concluded that MEIO can improve the fertility in diabetic males by adjusting the programmed cell death and establishing proper tissue homeostasis in epididymis.

Keywords:

Apoptosis , Caspase 3 , Diabetes , Epididymis , Oak