IMMUNONOLOGICAL EVALUATION an‎d ACUTE TOXICITY STUDY WITH FERTILITY EXAMINATION FOR THE EFFECT OF AQUEOUS EXTRACT FROM DRIED FRUITS OF Piper nigrum L. IN MICE

The research work was conducted to investigate the effect of oral administration of water extract of black pepper at doses of (1, 5) mg/kg body weight for two weeks daily by determining the genotoxic effect (mitotic index), evaluation of immunological effect (IgG, IgM, IgA, C3, C4) and measuring fertility hormones (follicles stimulation hormone/FSH, lutenising hormone/LH) levels with histopathological examinations of female albino swiss mice ovaries in comparison with control (normal saline). A clear effect in increasing mitotic activity was reveled for both doses in comparison with control. Results also showed a significant increase in the value of the all immunological parameters at both doses in comparison with control. Also obvious raise was seen in the level of FSH and LH for both doses when compared with normal saline treated mice with no significant damage seen in female ovaries tissue, in fact there were certain clinicopathological changes in mice ovaries tissue which were represented by increasing in the numbers of primary and secondary follicles and in the numbers of corpus luteum at both doses.