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     British Journal of Pharmacology and Toxicology


Quercetin Attenuates Testicular Damage and Oxidative Stress in Streptozotocin-induced Diabetic Rats

Osama A. Alkhamees
Department of Pharmacology, College of Medicine, Imam Muhammad Ibn Saud Islamic University, Riyadh P.O. Box 11623, Saudi Arabia, Tel.: 00966-500844476; Fax: 00966-14679014
British Journal of Pharmacology and Toxicology  2014  2:96-105
http://dx.doi.org/10.19026/bjpt.5.5462  |  © The Author(s) 2014
Received: November 22, 2013  |  Accepted: December 17, 2013  |  Published: April 20, 2014

Abstract

The present study aims to examine the influence of Quercetin (QR) in testis of Streptozotocin (STZ)-induced diabetic rats. Diabetes was induced by a single injection of STZ (65 mg/kg, ip). Quercetin (25 and 50 mg/kg/day) was treated to normal and diabetic rats for 5 weeks. In serum, glucose, testosterone, Interleukin-6 (IL-6), Interleukin-1beta (IL-1&bea) and Tumor Necrosis Factor-&alpha (TNF-&alpha) levels were estimated and in testis tissues Thiobarbituric Acid Reactive Substances (TBARS), sulfhydryl groups, nucleic acids and Total Protein (TP) levels were estimated. Superoxide Dismutase (SOD), Catalase (CAT) and Glutathione-S-Transferase (GST) activities were also determined in testicular cells. In penile tissue cyclic Guanosine Monophosphate (cGMP) levels were measured. Histopathological changes were evaluated in a cross-section of testis. Testosterone levels were decreased while pro-inflammatory markers were increased in diabetic rats. QR treatment to diabetic rats corrected these changes. In penile tissues cGMP content was markedly inhibited and normalized by the QR treatment. In STZ-induced diabetic rats, TBARS levels were significantly increased while T-GSH, NP-SH, DNA, RNA and TP levels were decreased and in QR treated groups showed significant inhibition in increased TBARS levels and decreased T-GSH and NP-SH levels. The inhibited activities of SOD, CAT and GST in testicular cells of diabetic rats were increased after QR treatment. The reduced levels of nucleic acids and TP in diabetic rats were markedly corrected in QR treated groups. Histopathological evaluation revealed damage in testicular cells of diabetic rats and the treatment with QR showed protection. These results suggest that, QR supplementation to STZ-induced diabetic rats for five consecutive weeks is a potentially beneficial agent to reduce testicular damage in adult diabetic rats, probably by decreasing oxidative stress.

Keywords:

Diabetes, oxidative stress, quercetin, streptozotocin, testicular damage,


References


Competing interests

The authors have no competing interests.

Open Access Policy

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.

Copyright

The authors have no competing interests.

ISSN (Online):  2044-2467
ISSN (Print):   2044-2459
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