Dry-feed Added Quercetin Mitigates Cyclophosphamide-induced Oxidative Stress, Inflammation and Gonadal Fibrosis in Adult Male Rats.

Background: Cyclophosphamide (CYP), a widely used cancer chemotherapeutic agent has been linked with male gonadotoxicity, resulting in infertility. The notion that potent antioxidants could be beneficial in mitigating CYP-induced gonadotoxicity necessitated this research. Therefore, we examined the effects of feed-added quercetin on CYP-induced gon-adotoxicity in male rats.

Methods: Male postpubertal rats were randomly assigned into six groups of 10 rats each. The normal control (fed standard rodent diet) and two groups fed quercetin-supplemented diet at 100 and 200 mg/kg of feed received normal saline intraperitoneally at 2 ml/kg daily. A fourth group which served as the CYP control (fed standard rodent diet) and the last two groups fed quercetin at 100 and 200 mg/kg of feed were administered CYP at 150 mg/kg/day. Rats were administered normal saline or CYP intraperitoneally on days 1 and 2, while standard diet or feed-added quercetin was administered daily for 21 days. On day 22, half of the animals were either sacrificed or paired with age-matched females for fertility assessment. Estimation of testosterone levels, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory markers, and histomorphological exami-nation of the testis and epididymis was also assessed.

Results: The administration of CYP was associated with weight loss, decreased food intake, decreased antioxidant capacity, increased gonadosomatic index, increased lipid peroxidation, sub-fertility, and histological evidence of gonadal injury. However, administration of querce-tin reversed CYP-induced changes.

Conclusion: The result of this study suggests that dietary quercetin supplementation has the ability to mitigate CYP induced gonadotoxicity and mitigate subfertility in male rats. How-ever, further studies are required to assess its possible use in humans.