Purpose The aim of this study was to investigate the protective effect of green tea extracts against doxorubicininduced damage in the mouse testes correlating with telomerase activity. Methods Green tea extracts were administered orally. Doxorubicin was coadministered intraperitoneally. These testes were evaluated histologically and the telomerase activity was analyzed. Additional immunostaining was carried out. Results Both the sperm density and sperm motility were significantly increased in green tea extracts coadministration groups as compared to the doxorubicin-treated groups. By histological analysis, germ cell damage was greatly attenuated by green tea extracts coadministration. Telomerase activity significantly increased in association with the coadministration of green tea extracts as compared to that of doxorubicin-only groups. In all groups, human telomerase reverse transcriptase signals were mainly observed in the spermatocytes and spermatids.Conclusions These findings suggest that green tea extracts exert protective effects against doxorubicin-induced spermatogenic disorders in conjunction with higher telomerase activity levels.

The spanning protocol was most efficient for extracting DNA from a single cell and should be particularly useful for preimplantation genetic diagnosis.

Aim: The purpose of this study was to assess the relationship between chronically impaired spermatogenesis induced by exposing mice to doxorubicin (DXR) and expression of the infertility factor c-kit. Method: Eight-week-old male Institute for Cancer Research (ICR) mice were intraperitoneally treated with DXR (0.15 mg/kg, DXR group) or saline (0.15 mg/kg, control group) twice weekly for five weeks and were killed 14 weeks after initial exposure. The animals were sacrificed and bilateral testes were removed and weighed. The testes were stored for the mRNA assay and were fixed for immunohistochemistry. Some testicular samples were fixed in 10% formalin for histopathological examination. Results: Testicular weight (67.6 Ϯ 9.7 mg, P < 0.05), sperm motility (18 Ϯ 6.0%, P < 0.05) and the fertilization rate (2-to-16-cell embryos, 5%; P < 0.05) were significantly lower in the DXR group than in the control group. In the DXR group there was severe tissue damage from the spermatogonia onward, and the Sertoli cell ratio was lower in the DXR group than in the control group (38% vs. 9%, P < 0.05). In addition, there was a decrease in c-kit protein expression, and the amount of c-kit messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) expression according to a semiquantitative method was also decreased. Conclusion: Expression of c-kit in the mice with chronically impaired spermatogenesis induced by long-term, low-dose administration of DXR correlated with the decrease in the number of spermatogonia.

Aim: The present study investigated whether the CAG repeat length in exon 1 of the androgen receptor gene on the X chromosome is associated with male infertility. Methods:The CAG repeat length between the two groups of 143 idiopathic infertile Japanese men with severe oligozoospermia or non-obstructive azoospermia and 100 fertile men were analyzed. The azoospermia factor deletions were also analyzed.Results: Although there was no significant difference in the mean length between the two groups observed (P = 0.055), the distribution in the infertile men was wider than that in the fertile men. Similar results were detected in the combined data from previous Japanese reports and our present data including 261 infertile and 235 fertile men. We detected 12 and 34 CAG repeats in the present study that were the shortest and the longest repeats in Japan, respectively. Conclusions:These results suggest that excessive expansion or reduction of CAG repeats might be related to impaired spermatogenesis. (Reprod Med Biol 2003; 2: 145-150)

No abstract