The Protective Role of Alpha Lipoic Acid Against pesticides Induced Testicular Toxicity- Histopathological and Histochemical Studies

The present study aimed to investigate the effi ciency of alpha-lipoic acid (ALA) as natural antioxidant in ameliorating some of changes induced by intoxication with a mixture of well known pesticides used in our agricultural media.Four groups of male rats were treated as follows untreated control animals, (p-mix, consists of 1/60LD50 chloropyrifos (2mg/ Kg b.wt) 1/200 LD50 of fenitrothion (2.5 mg/km b.wt) as used in agriculutural environment and ALA 200mg/animal of alpha lipoic acid, (P-mix+ALA).Histological observation of the intoxicated rats revealed signifi cant alterations in the testis tissue of P mix.treated group including focal mild testicular damage, blood hemorrhage and hypospermatogensis, necrosis and atrophy.The degree of fi brosis was encountered using masson-trichrome stain technique which revealed various fi brosis grades between the control and treated testes tissues upon the exposure to the insecticides.TUNEL technique showed an increase in the incidence of positive apoptotic cells between the spermatogonial and germ cells.Also complete depletion of the level of acid phosphatase enzyme which involved in the testosterone biosynthesis.The treatment with alpha lipoic acid showed many degrees of improvements in the seminiferous tubules, spermatogenic germ cells and the interstitial cells.Also decrease in the grades of fi brosis between testis tissues.Conclusion: The biochemical, hiopathological, reports supported that the pesticides have many implicated toxic changes on the testes tissues and the antioxidants like alpha lipoic acid obtained many trials to get ameliorative effects on the toxicity of pesticides.