Sperm-head abnormalities and dominant lethal effects of anthelmintic drugs in albino rats

ABSTRACT

This study was performed to evaluate the effects of some anthelmintic drugs on sperm abnormality, micronuclei in bone marrow cells and dominant lethal effects including chromosomal aberrations and developmental toxicity in embryos. Albino male rats were treated with pyrantel pamoate, albendazole, mebendazole and niridazole with a single intraperitoneal injections of different dose levels corresponding to 1.0X, 1.5X and 2X of human therapeutic dose. After 6 and 8 weeks exposure males were mated with untreated females, chromosomal aberrations and development toxicity in rat embryos on day 1 of gestation were examined. It was observed that pyrantel pamoate and niridazole induced increases in sperm abnormalities, micronuclei percentages in bone marrow cells of male rats and a significant increases in chromosomal aberrations and developmental toxicity in embryos over the controls at all dose levels. This increase was dose- dependent and decreased with the time from 6 to 8 weeks exposure indicating that both drugs might be mutagenic and embryo toxic agents. The common types of aberrations were gaps, breaks, end-to-end, endometosis and fragments. On the other hand, albendazole and mebendazole were unable to induce statistically significant increases in sperm abnormalities, micronuclei cells, embryonic chromosomal aberrations and developmental toxicity over the controls at all the dose levels tested indicating that both drugs might not be embryotoxic agents