Protective Effect of Lycium barbarum Polysaccharides Against Doxorubicin-induced Testicular Toxicity in Rats

The present study aimed to investigate whether Lycium barbarum polysaccharides (LBP) would protect against doxorubicin (DOX)-induced testicular toxicity. Male Sprague-Dawley rats were treated with distilled water (4?mL/kg) or LBP (200?mg/kg, p.o.) daily for 10?days and followed by saline (0.9 %, 10?mL/kg) or DOX (10?mg/kg) intravenous injection at day 7. Pretreatment with LBP ameliorated DOX-induced reduction in the testicular weights, sperm concentrations and percentage of motile sperms, as well as the increase in abnormal sperm rate. LBP administration to DOX-treated rats successfully reversed the changes in MDA and GHS-Px levels. Compared with the control, pretreatment with LBP significantly increased the plasma testosterone level in the LBP + DOX group. The histopathology examinations further confirmed that LBP effectively attenuated DOX-induced severe degenerative changes of seminiferous tubules. This study illustrated the capability of LBP in attenuating testicular oxidative stress and protecting testis-specific toxicity in DOX-exposed rats. Copyright (c) 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.