ABSTRACT
In recent years concerns have been raised about human reproductive disorders, specially the effects of environmental factors on human fertility and pregnancy outcome. Therefore, the present study was designed to assess the effects of maternal caffeine consumption on ovarian follicles development in rat offspring. 60 pregnant female rats were randomly divided into a control and two experimental groups. The rats in the two experimental groups received caffeine via drinking water during gestation [26 and 45 mg/kg] and lactation [25 and 35 mg/kg]. The ovaries of the offspring were removed at 7, 14, 28, 60, 90 and 120 days after birth, and fixed in Bouin's solution. By preparing serial tissue sections, structural changes in ovarian follicles and corpora lutea were studied during postnatal development. The weight of ovaries decreased significantly [p<0.05] in the high dose caffeine-treated group at all stages of postnatal development. Significant [p<0.05] decreases were seen in the number of primordial follicles from day 7 to 120 after birth in the high dose caffeine-treated group. Moreover, the number of primary and secondary follicles decreased significantly on days 7, 14 and 28 as did the number of antral follicles on days 14 and 28 after birth [p<0.05] in the high dose caffeine-treated group. The diameter of secondary and antral follicles decreased significantly [p<0.05] in high dose caffeine-treated group on the early days of postnatal development. No statistically significant differences were seen in the number of corpora lutea between the groups. The present study shows that caffeine consumption during gestation and lactation affects the early stages of ovarian follicle development and reduces reproductive efficiency in the offspring of Wistar rats
Subject(s)
Female , Animals, Laboratory , Rats, Wistar , Fertility , Pregnancy , Ovarian FollicleABSTRACT
There are some reports that the teratogenic effects of cyclophosphamide [CPA] can be prevented by application of antioxidant drugs and stimulation of the maternal immune system. Echinacea purpurea extract is antioxidative and immunomodulator drug. Mesna [Sodium 2-mercaptoethane sulfonate] is used for decreasing side effects of CPA, especially hemorrhagic cystitis. In this study, we compared the prophylactic effects of mesna and Echinacea extract on teratogenic effects of CPA. This study was performed on 32 pregnant rats that were divided into 4 groups. The first group [control group] received normal saline and the other groups received CPA [15 mg/kg intraperitoneally] on 13th day of gestation. Mesna and E. purpurea extracts were administrated at doses of 100 and 400 mg/kg by IP injection, respectively, along with it and 12 hr later, after CPA injection. Rats were dissected on day 20 of gestation, embryos harvested and after determination of gross malformations they were stained by Alizarin red-Alcian blue method. Cleft palate incidence was 38.46, 30.77 and 14.28% in fetuses of rats that received only CPA, CPA with mesna and CPA with Echinacea extract, respectively. In addition, skeletal anomalies incidence including limbs, vertebra, sternum, and scapula defects were decreased by Echinacea extract. E. purpurea has significant effect on preventing CPA-induced malformations and better prophylactic effect than mesna on cases like CPA-induced cleft palate