College of Veterinary Medicine and Research Institute of Veterinary Medicine, Chungbuk National University, Cheongju 28644, South Korea.
Asan Institute for Life Sciences, University of Ulsan College of Medicine, Seoul 05505, South Korea.
Food Funct. 2015 Dec;6(12):3770-7. doi: 10.1039/c5fo00726g.
Approximately 20% of couples worldwide are infertile and about half of these couples have male infertility. Therefore, it is important to develop effective strategies for preventing male infertility. In this study, we examined the effects and regulatory mechanisms of curcumin, an active ingredient in the traditional herbal treatment derived from the dietary spice turmeric (Curcuma longa), on exogenous scrotal heat stress-induced testicular injuries in mice. Adult mice were orally administered three different doses of curcumin (20, 40, or 80 mg per kg per day) for 14 consecutive days and then subjected to transient scrotal heat stress at 43 °C for 20 min on day 7. The testes and blood of the mice were collected on day 14. Mice exposed to heat stress showed low testicular weight, severe vacuolization of seminiferous tubules followed by loss of spermatogenic cells, and the appearance of multinucleated giant cells and degenerative Leydig cells. In addition, great changes in oxidative stress (lipid peroxidation, superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity, cytoplasmic SOD, mitochondrial SOD, and phospholipid hydroperoxide glutathione peroxidase mRNAs), apoptosis (B-cell lymphoma-extra large and caspase 3 mRNAs), heat shock reaction (heat shock transcription factor-1 and transforming growth factor-β1 mRNAs) and androgen biosynthesis (testosterone concentration and 3β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase mRNA) were observed. However, all these testicular injuries induced by the scrotal hyperthermia were significantly improved by curcumin treatment (20, 40 and 80 mg kg(-1)) in a dose-dependent manner via its antioxidative, anti-apoptotic and androgen synthesis effects, indicating that it has the potential to prevent male infertility.
全世界大约有 20%的夫妇患有不孕症，其中约一半的夫妇患有男性不育症。因此，开发有效的男性不育预防策略非常重要。在这项研究中，我们研究了姜黄素（一种从食用香料姜黄（Curcuma longa）中提取的传统草药治疗的有效成分）对雄性小鼠外源阴囊热应激引起的睾丸损伤的作用和调节机制。成年雄性小鼠连续 14 天每天口服三种不同剂量的姜黄素（20、40 或 80 mg/kg），然后在第 7 天在 43°C 下进行短暂的阴囊热应激 20 分钟。在第 14 天收集小鼠的睾丸和血液。暴露于热应激的小鼠睾丸重量降低，生精小管严重空泡化，随后精子发生细胞丢失，出现多核巨细胞和退化的莱迪希细胞。此外，氧化应激（脂质过氧化、超氧化物歧化酶（SOD）活性、细胞质 SOD、线粒体 SOD 和磷脂氢过氧化物谷胱甘肽过氧化物酶 mRNA）、凋亡（B 细胞淋巴瘤-额外大和 caspase 3 mRNA）、热休克反应（热休克转录因子-1 和转化生长因子-β1 mRNA）和雄激素生物合成（睾酮浓度和 3β-羟甾类脱氢酶 mRNA）发生了巨大变化。然而，通过姜黄素处理（20、40 和 80 mg/kg），以剂量依赖的方式，所有这些由阴囊过热引起的睾丸损伤均得到显著改善，这是通过其抗氧化、抗凋亡和雄激素合成作用实现的，表明其具有预防男性不育的潜力。
