The animals
were maintained with standard pellet feed (Sai Durga Feeds and Foods, Bangalore, India) and water ad libitum. Seventy-five healthy male albino rats were selected and divided into five groups containing 15 rats each and treated as follows: Group-I received Distilled water as normal vehicle (DW) (10 ml/kg body weight) Distilled water, Non-herbal suspension (NHS), HOCS-I, HOCS-II and HOCS-III were administered intragastric (i.g.) route on consecutive days for 55 days. RNA Synthesis inhibitor At the end of the experimental period, five animals from both controls and experimental groups were given anesthesia under mild sodium pentobarbital 24 h after the last dose and 18 h after fasting. The testis, cauda epididymal ducts and seminal vesicles were dissected out, trimmed off from adherent fats and weighed and recorded to the nearest selleck chemicals llc milligram on a digital balance. Sperm from cauda epididymal ducts
were released in Phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) media and used for spermatological studies. Testis, epididymis, seminal vesicles and ventral prostate gland were weighted to the nearest milligrams. Sperm morphology was observed adopting Papanicolaou staining. The staining solutions were prepared according to Raphael.5 The cauda epididymal duct was uncoiled and knotted with nylon thread at both the ends of a 1 cm length. One end was cut to release the contents into 0.1 ml of phosphate-buffered saline (PBS). Sperm counts were made according to Gopalakrishnan.6 The results obtained were subjected to calculation of standard deviation (SD), and test of significance (‘t’ test). The means and standard deviation were calculated
where appropriate. Statistical differences were determined by the ANOVA followed by Dunnet’s test and the found level of significance set at p < 0.05. In many cases results were calculated as percentage of relevant control values (as the control values could vary between cell preparations and between experiments) to make understanding of the results easier. Table 1 shows the comparison of effects among the untreated (vehicle control) groups with the suspensions treated groups of rats. The results of this study revealed a significant (p < 0.05) reductions in the weights of the testis, epididymis and seminal vesicle in extracts-treated rats when compared with vehicle control. The percentage decrease in weight of testis, caput epidimidis, cauda epidimidis, seminal vesicle and Ventral prostate for HOCS-M-I (group-III) 41.42, 27.97, 21.74, 21.55 and 26.37% respectively; for HOCS-M-II (group-IV) 37.14, 20.46, 18.29, 14.64 and 19.12% respectively; and HOCS-M-III (group-V) 48.92, 35.22, 23.92, 24.33 and 35.93% respectively at a tested dose. In the vehicle control (Group-II) rat, 94.1% of spermatozoa possess normal morphology. But, in the treated rat; 13.2% of group-III (HOCS-M-I), 46.5% of group-IV (HOCS-M-II) and 8.