Problems of Radiation Medicine and Radiobiology

Analysis of the antioxidantive qualities of sperm after total body X-irradiation of animals

A. V. Klepko, O. A. Motrina, V. M. Bulavytska, Yu. A. Kondratova, O. S. Vatlitsova, A. V. Chernyshov, S. V. Andreychenko
State Institution “National Research Center for Radiation Medicine of the National Academy of MedicalSciences of Ukraine”, Melnykov str., 53, Kyiv, 04050, Ukraine

Objective: To study dynamics of natural antioxidant levels and antioxidant enzymes activities in rabbit seminal fluid in conditions of single total body X-ray irradiation in different doses.
Materials and methods. Soviet Shinshilla white rabbit males 30–36 months old were taken into investigation. Sperm was collected by artificial vagina. Seminal fluid was purified from spermatozoa by centrifugation at 2500g during 12 min. Animals were irradiated by X-rays on RUM-17 device (Russia) in doses 1.0; 2.0; 5.0 and 7.0 Gy with dose rate 2.8x10-3 Gy/sec. Sperm was gathered on 10th and 90th day after irradiation. Free glutathione and thiol concentration were assessed by spectrophotometry using 2.2-dithiobisnitrobenzoic acid, lipid peroxidation was evaluated by measuring of TBA-active products concentration. Enzymatic activities of superoxiddismutase, catalase, glutathionperoxidase and glutathionreductase were estimated in substrate specific reactions spectrophotometrically.
Results. Dose-dependant up-regulation of antioxidant enzymatic activity of seminal fluid on the 10th day after exposure to 1.0–7.0 Gy dose range of total X-ray irradiation was shown. This effect was accompanied by the decrease of free thiols concentration, from the one hand, and both TBA-active products and oxidized glutathione contents elevation, from the other hand. This seminal plasma state was shown to be temporal and partially normalized on 90th day after exposure.
Conclusions. Total X-ray irradiation of rabbits leads to significant up-regulation of antioxidant processes of both enzymatic and non-enzymatic type on the 10th day after radiation exposure in seminal plasma. This effect was shown to be dose-dependеnt. Then antioxidant activity dropped and metabolic activities gradually normalized according to studied parameters within 90 days after exposure in 1.0 and 2.0 Gy.

Key words: sperm, seminal fluid, antioxidant activity, enzymes, free thiols, glutathione, rabbits, total irradiation.

Problems of radiation medicine and radiobiology. 2014;19:407-418.