Investigation of hormonal, biometric and histological changes in ram testicles following allograft transplantation
Subject Areas : Veterinary Clinical PathologyAytak Bakhshayesh Khiabani 1 , gholamali moghaddam 2 , Babak Qassemi Panahi 3 , hossein daghighkia 4 , arash javanmard 5
1 - Ph.D. Student of Animal Science, Department of Animal Science, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran.
2 - Professor, Department of Animal Science, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran.
3 - Associate Professor, Department of Animal Science, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran.
4 - Professor, Department of Animal Science, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran.
5 - Associate Professor, Department of Animal Science, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran.
Keywords: Adipose-derived stem cells, Allograft transplantation, Hormonal changes, Ram, Testis.,
Abstract :
Stem cells are undifferentiated cells with the ability to transform into all specialized cells, whose existence is necessary for a person's life. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to investigate the hormonal, biometric and histological changes of testicles after allograft transplantation in rams. For this purpose, a total of 20 male lambs were used as cell donors and recipients as well as to confirm the effect of tamoxifen and controls. Azoospermia was induced in both testicles of recipient lambs and stem cells were extracted and cultured from the fat tissue of donor lambs. Cells were transferred in both testicles. The circumference of the scrotum and the dimensions of the testis were measured during three stages before and after the induction of azoospermia and after transplantation. Blood sampling was also done in three stages. Forty nine days after transplantation, one of the testicles was removed and sent to the laboratory for histological evaluation. The highest and lowest scrotal circumference sizes were related to the control group at the age of 9 months (32.35 cm) and the treatment group at the age of 7 months respectively, and there was a significant difference between the two groups (p<0.05). The effect of applying the factor, sampling time and interaction effect of treatment × time on all studied traits was significant (p<0.05). Also the induction of azoospermia using tamoxifen led to severe destruction of the germinal epithelium in seminiferous tubules. Since the transplantation of stem cells led to the successful induction of spermatogenesis in the seminiferous tubules of azoospermic sheep, therefore, this technique can be used for the transfer of stem cells from a superior animal as a donor for the production of functional sperm in another animal of the same species.
