The protective effect of Quercus brantii fruit methanolic extract on volume of germinal epithelium of seminiferous tubules in type II diabetic rats

Objectives: In recent decades, the prevalence of diabetes has risen dramatically in many countries. Type II diabetes is a common endocrine disorder that has a secondary side effect on structure and function of male reproductive organ chronically. Fruit of Iranian oak (Quercus brantii) possess many biological and pharmacological activities and is used widely in Iranian traditional folkloric medicine. Our recent data showed that Q. brantii had a hypoglycemic effect in diabetic rats but there is no data about its effects on spermatogonia cells in diabetic males.Materials Methods: Twenty adult male wistar rats were divided into 4 groups including: control, sham, diabetic and treatment. Type II diabetes was induced by high fat diet and 35 mg/kg streptozotocin in diabetic and treatment groups. One week after streptozotocin injection, sham and treatment groups received 100 mg/kg/day total methanolic extract of oak by oral gavage for 40 consecutive days. Finally, animals were euthanized and testes were removed and fixed in 10% neutral buffered formalin. The samples were processed by routine and standard paraffin embedding and serially sectioned at 20 µm thickness. The sections were selected through systematic random sampling and stained by H E. The number of spermatogonia was estimated by unbiased stereological technique using optical fractionator method.Results Conclusion: The results showed that there is no significant difference in volume of germinal epithelium in sham compared to control mice. Results also indicated that diabetes cause reduction in volume of germinal epithelium compared to control and administration of Q. brantii could inhibit this reduction significantly (p 0.05). There is no significant difference among volume of germinal epithelium in treated diabetic animal compared to control mice.It can be concluded that Q. brantii can be considered as a therapeutic strategy for improvement of diabetes side effect in testis and infertility of male diabetic animals.