RESUMO
Cadmium (Cd) is a potential environmental pollutant and causes severe damage to reproductive organs in adults including ovary and testes. Of all antioxidants α-tocopheral is considered to be most potent chain breaking antioxidant. Our aim was to study the effect of α-tocopheral on biochemical and histological alterations induced by Cd in testes of rats. Group 1 served as control, while groups 2 and 3 received subcutaneous injections of CdCl2 (3 mg/kg b.wt) once a week for four weeks. Group 3 in addition received α-tocopheral (75 mg/kg b.wt.) orally, daily for six weeks. Cadmium caused testicular tissue biochemical alterations such as significant increase in MDA, a peroxidation marker, decrease in antioxidant markers viz SOD, CAT and GSH and functional markers viz ALP and LDH. Histological alteration induced by Cd consisted of desquamation of basal lamina, shrunken tubules, generalized germ cell depletion with multinucleated gaint cells, degenerating Leydig cells, vascular congestion, interstitial edema and significant reduction in spermatodynamic count. α- tocopheral significantly reversed all the Cd induced alterations. These results indicate that α-tocopheral has a protective effect against Cd indced biochemical and histological alterations in rat testes.