Anatomie et physiologie : recherches en cours
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Developmental Characteristics of Rat Testicular Tissue and the Impact of Chronic Noise Stress Exposure in the Prenatal and Postnatal Periods

Salwa Saad Lasheen, Seham Hassan Refaat, Nagwa Ebrahim EI-Nefiawy*, Rasha Mahmoud Abd-Elgawad, Asmaa Ibrahim Othman and Nouran Khaled Olama

Recently claims have been raised that noise stress may exert adverse effects on the reproductive functions. The present study was undertaken to investigate first; developmental histological characteristics of rat testis at 3 critical age periods namely; full term fetus, pre-pubertal and adult stages. Second, the impact of chronic noise stress exposure on testicular tissue at these age periods.

Albino rats were used and assigned into 3 groups; pregnant rats (to obtain fetuses at day 20 of gestation), prepubertal and adult male rats. Each group was subdivided into control and experimental subgroups. Experimental subgroups were exposed to noise stress (100dB), 6 hours daily for 30 days for Pre-pubertal and adult groups. While, pregnant rats were exposed to noise stress from day 8-20 of gestation then rats were sacrificed, testicles of fetuses were extracted. At the end of experiment, all testicles were extracted from pre-pubertal and adult rats and processed for paraffin block embedding, light microscopic examination and immunohistochemical staining for apoptosis (TUNNEL assay). Histomorphometric measurements were done by image analysis. The current study demonstrated detailed histological, immunohistochemical and histomorphometric differences across developmental ages examined. The study also showed that noise stress induced several histopathological changes of testicular tissue, increased number of apoptotic germ cells, and decreased size and number of seminiferous tubules in prenatal and pre-pubertal groups. In Conclusion, the study demonstrated detailed histological features of early rat testicular development. Also, revealed that noise stress induced damage to rat testicular tissue at the three examined ages. Current findings support the notion that noise may adversely affect reproduction and fertility of exposed-males.

Recommendations: Noise as a form of stress is not well investigated. People should be aware of the hazards of exposure to high intensity sounds especially young age and pregnant females to ensure them a future healthy reproductive life.