Biomedical Research

Alpha lipoic acid (ALA) is a known „universal? antioxidant which is particularly important in the treatment of diabetes-related complications. Nicotine, on the other hand, is a known pro-oxidant that has been shown to retard the development of preimplantation embryos. The objective of this study is to determine the effect of ALA supplementation on the in vitro development of embryo in nicotine-treated mice. Mus musculus mice aged between 4-6 weeks were co-treated with nicotine (5 mg/kg b.wt) and ALA (4 mg/kg b.wt) daily for thirty days. At the end of the treatment period, the mice were superovulated, mated, and the embryos were collected from the flushed fallopian tubes. All normal embryos were cultured in Whitten?s medium for 4 days. A total of 748 embryos were retrieved of which 65% were found normal. Nicotine treatment increased the number of abnormal embryos (13.0 ± 2.4) as compared to control (6.3 ± 2.0) [P<0.05], however, supplementation with ALA reduced this number to 8.5 ± 1.8. On subsequent culture, the embryos from the nicotine-treated mice failed to reach the stage of blastocyst, however, 83% embryos from the co-treatment group developed into blastocyst and even reached to the hatched stage as compared to control (89%). These results therefore, suggest that ALA is able to reverse the adverse effect of nicotine on the in vitro development of embryos. The reduction in plasma malondealdehyde (MDA) levels of the co-treated mice (0.54 ± 0.06 μmol/mg protein) as compared to nicotine treatment alone (1.66 ± 0.25 μmol/mg protein) [P<0.001] further supports the antioxidant effect of ALA. ALA is, therefore, found to be beneficial in reducing the deleterious effect of nicotine on the development of embryo in culture.

Author(s): Rozzana MS, Zaiton Z, Rajikin MH, Fadzilah S and Zanariyah A
Abstract | Full-Text | PDF

Share this