Abstract

Tarfa M. P.*, Mshelia P. P., Mahdi O. and Leonard, M. P.

ABSTRACT

Randomly bred normal Forty (40) male albino rats of wistar strain obtained from the wistar rat colony of the Department of Pharmacology, University of Jos, were used for this study. All the animals weighing between 90 – 230 grams and 10 – 20 weeks old were maintained under uniform conditions across ventilated room (temperature 25 – 28oc, and 12h light/dark cycle), with free access to standard diet of Growers Mash (Vital Feed Nig PLC, Maiduguri) and portable water ad Libitum. The rats were divided into groups I, II, III and IV with 10 rats each. However, the rats in groups II, III and IV received oral administration of the solution of Methylene Chloride at 420mg/kg, 840mg/kg and 1260mg/kg respectively for 5 weeks via oro-gastric intubation. Routine histological sections of the testes obtained from rats treated with methylene chloride at all the dose levels (420mg/kg, 840mg/kg and 1260mg/kg) for 5 weeks were characterized by relative slit decrease in the size of the seminiferous tubules and interstitial connective tissues. The seminiferous tubule epithelium showed the presence of distorted Sertoli and germ cells and also epithelial necrosis after a while, the effects became more pronounced with greatly increased seminiferous tubular luminal diameter from 57?m to 62?m, the interstitial cells of Leydig were not greatly affected. From the result, it was seen that methylene chloride has a degenerative effect on the cyto-architecture of the testis which and this could result to infertility and be detrimental to reproductive health.