Dietary rosemary oil alleviates heat stress-induced structural and functional damage through lipid peroxidation in the testes of growing Japanese quail

Abstract

Supplementation of natural antioxidants to diets of male poultry has been reported to be effective in reducing or completely eliminating heat stress (HS)-induced reproductive failures. In this study, the aim is to investigate whether rosemary oil (RO) has a protective effect on HS-induced damage in spermatozoa production, testicular histologic structures, apoptosis, and androgenic receptor (AR) through lipid peroxidation mechanisms in growing Japanese quail. Male chicks (n=90) at 15-days of age were assigned to two groups. The first group (n=45) was kept in a thermo-neutral (TN) room at 22°C for 24h/d. The second group (n=45) was kept in a room with a greater ambient temperature of 34°C for 8h/d (from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM) and 22°C for 16h/d. Animals in each of these two groups were randomly assigned to three subgroups (RO groups: 0, 125, 250ppm), consisting of 15 chicks (six treatment groups in 2×3 factorial design). Each of subgroups was replicated three times with each replicate including five chicks. The HS treatment significantly reduced the testicular spermatogenic cell counts, amount of testicular Bcl-2 (anti-apoptotic marker) and amount of AR. In addition, it significantly increased testicular lipid peroxidation, Bax (apoptotic marker) immunopositive staining, and the Bax/Bcl-2 ratio in conjunction with some histopathologic damage. Dietary supplementation of RO to diets of quail where the HS treatment was imposed alleviated HS-induced almost all negative changes such as increased testicular lipid peroxidation, decreased numbers of spermatogenic cells, and decreased amounts of Bcl-2 and AR, increased ratio of Bax/Bcl-2 and some testicular histopathologic lesion. In conclusion, dietary supplementation of RO for growing male Japanese quail reared in HS environmental conditions alleviates the HS-induced structural and functional damage by providing a decrease in lipid peroxidation.

Influence of <i>Nigella sativa</i> and rosemary oils on growth performance, biochemical, antioxidant and immunological parameters, and pathological changes in Japanese quail challenged with <i>Escherichia coli</i>

“…The antioxidant activity of rosemary may be attributed to its components such as phenolic diterpenes, flavonoids, phenolic acids and volatile oils which have free radical scavenging properties (Ho et al, 2000;Begum et al, 2013). The role of RO in reducing MDA and increasing GSH level and CAT activity was previously reported by Türk et al (2016) and Yildirim et al (2018). Black cumin may be an antioxidant that inhibits free radicle production and increases antioxidant enzymes activity due to the main bioactive components of black cumin essential oil (Tülüce et al, 2009).…”

Influence of Using Dietary Antioxidant on Productive and Reproductive Performance of Mandara Strains Under Summer Conditions

“…These results are in agreement with those of McDaniel et al (2004) who expressed that semen ejaculate volume, sperm-cell concentration, percentage of live spermatozoa cells and percentage of sperm motility were decreased in the males were exposed to heat stress. In males, heat stress initiates testicular damage by hoisting testicular lipid peroxidation because of increases in ROS, which negatively affect the weight of testes, semen, ejaculate volume, sperm-cell concentration, percentage of live and normal sperm count, spermatogonia, spermatocytes, spermatids, the positive dead sperm count and motility (Türk et al, 2016). However, Radwan et al (2008) found that expansion of 0.5 or 1.0 oregano to El-Salaam cock's diets increased semen ejaculate volume, sperm motility (%) and live sperm (%), and decreased dead spermatozoa (%) and abnormal spermatozoa (%) compared to the control group.…”

Effect of Ascorbic Acid and/or Alpha-Tocopherol Fortification on Semen Quality, Metabolic Profile, Antioxidants Status, and Dna of Roosters Exposed to Heat Stress

“…The HS has been shown to have a negative effect on testes and testicular function through inhibition of intracellular ion exchange (Ayo et al, 2011;Khan et al, 2014;Chen et al, 2015), as well as influencing the ejaculate volume, concentration and motility of sperm (Turk et al, 2016). The adverse impact of HS on performance, semen quality, and fertility of animals was observed when the air temperature was increased above 27°C (Biswas et al, 2009).…”