Protective effect of Eruca sativa seed oil against oral nicotine induced testicular damage in rats.

Nicotine is a pharmacologically active component of the tobacco that adversely affects the male reproductive system and fertility. Nicotine administration in experimental animals was found to affect spermatogenesis, epididymal sperm count, motility and the fertilizing potential of sperms. The goal of this work is to assess the protective or ameliorative effect of Eruca Sativa seed oil against testicular damage induced by oral administration of nicotine in rats. Male adult Sprague-Dawley rats were used and divided into three groups; control, nicotine treated and nicotine and Eruca seed oil treated groups. After three weeks of treatment, the rats were weighed and sacrificed where testes were removed and weighed then calculating relative testis weights. The testes were processed for routine paraffin embedding and staining and the sections were examined for different morphometric and histopathological changes. The results show that nicotine administration had an effect on the body and testis weight and various morphometric parameters of the testis. It also induced varying degrees of structural damage to the seminiferous tubules, with shrinkage and absence of mature spermatids. Disorganized, vacuolization and loss of germinal cells were noticed in the basement membrane. The co-administration of Eruca Sativa seed oil led to improvement in the morphometric and histopathological changes of the seminiferous tubules. In conclusion, Eruca Sativa seed oil treatment in this study had a protective role by reversing, almost completely, all morphometric and histological changes in the testis induced by nicotine administration.

The innovative safe fixative for histology, histopathology, and immunohistochemistry techniques: "pilot study using shellac alcoholic solution fixative".

The concerns over health and workplace hazards of formalin fixative, joined to its cross-linking of molecular groups that results in suboptimal immunohistochemistry, led us to search for an innovative safe fixative. Shellac is a natural material which is used as a preservative in foods and pharmaceutical industries. This study was undertaken to evaluate the fixation adequacy and staining quality of histopathological specimens fixed in the "shellac alcoholic solution" (SAS), and also to determine the validity of immunohistochemical staining of SAS-fixed material in comparison to those fixed in formalin. Fresh samples from 26 cases from various human tissues were collected at the frozen section room of King Abdulaziz University Hospital, and fixed in SAS fixative or in neutral buffered formaldehyde (NBF) for 12, 18, 24, and 48 h, and processed for paraffin sectioning. Deparaffinized sections were stained with hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) and immunostained for different antigens. The tissues fixed in SAS for >18 h showed best staining quality of H&E comparable to NBF-fixed tissues. Comparison of the immunohistochemical staining of different tissues yielded nearly equivalent readings with good positive nuclear staining quality in both fixatives. These findings support the fixation and preservation adequacy of SAS. Furthermore, it was concluded that the good staining quality obtained with SAS-fixed tissues, which was more or less comparable with the quality obtained with the formalin fixed tissues, supports the validity of this new solution as a good innovative fixative.