Abstract

REPRODUCTIVE TOXICITY OF IRON OXIDE NANOPARTICLES, SILVER NANOPARTICLES AND THEIR MIXTURE IN MALE RATS: EFFECT ON THE TESTICULAR DNA FRAGMENTATION

Ahmed Ibrahim Younus*, Mokhtar Ibrahim Yousef, Maher Abdel-Nabi Kamel and Jubran Mohammed Abdulrahman

ABSTRACT

Iron oxide nanoparticles (Fe2O3NPs) and silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) have shown wide biological applications in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), drug delivery, gene therapy, cancer treatments, in vitro diagnostics (IVD), and vaccine and antibody production. Although Fe2O3NPs and AgNPsmay lead to reproductive toxicity and DNA fragmentation. The present study aimed to investigate the reproductive toxicity of iron oxide nanoparticles, silver nanoparticles and their combination in male rats. Wistar male rats were used in this investigation. Animals were divided into 4 equal groups, 10 rats each. Group 1 served as control, group 2 was administered orally with Fe2O3NPs (5 mg/kg BW; >50 nm), group 3 was treated intraperitoneally with AgNPs (50 mg/kg BW; >100 nm) and group 4 was administered with the mixture of Fe2O3NPs with AgNPs. Animals were treated with doses every day for 79 days. The results showed that treatment with Fe2O3NPs, AgNPs and their combination caused significant (P < 0.05) increase in DNA fragmentations, in testes compared to control group. It was concluded that exposure to Fe2O3NPs and AgNPs and their combination caused adverse effects on the testicular in DNA fragmentations.

Keywords: Iron oxide nanoparticles; Silver nanoparticles; Male rats; DNA fragmentation.