Biomedical Research

Acrolein is an important chemical molecule of the global environment. It has dual importance as a by product of industrial wastes, automobile exhaust, and secondly an active metabolite of cyclophosphamide metabolic pathway. Acrolein is highly reactive unsaturated three carbon aldehyde. The importance of this chemical molecule increased several folds because of high reactivity; therefore, study has been designed with the aim to evaluate the effect of low dose (1mg/kg body wt. /day), continuous exposure (i.p.) of acrolein alone or with ascorbate (5 mg/kg body wt) for 10 days to rats .Reproductive performance of the treated rats were observed by serial mating experiments with opposite sex of the same strain. Infertility (33%) was observed when compared with controls. Most interesting finding is significant reduction (P<0.001) in the size of germ cell – populations i.e. primary, secondary and graafian follicles in medulla as well as in cortex region of the ovary as observed in experimental group. In another set of experimental group where antioxidant (ascorbic acid) was supplemented along with acrolein which shows regeneration of germ cells proliferation, suggesting ascorbate help to prevent cell-damage during cell-division in female gonads. The study was also further extended to observed genetic damage in term of chromosomal aberrations assay which reveals that significant changes (p < 0.05) were observed when compared with control groups.

Author(s): Ajit K Saxena, Divya Singh and Gajendra Singh
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