Investigation on the effect of chronic ethanol consumption on IGF-I receptors in rat testes during puberty period by immunohistochemical method

Abstract

While the ethanol is a gonadal toxin, insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF-I) has an important role in regulation of spermatogenesis and its signal is predominantly mediated by the IGF-I receptor (IGF-IR). In this study it was aimed to investigate the effect of chronic ethanol consumption on IGF-IR in the rat testes. The rats were divided into two groups: sucrose and alcohol group. The experiment was started on 25(th) day of postnatal period. Water including 15 percent of ethanol was fed up with the alcohol group. The applications were finished on 35(th), 41(th), 50(th) and 70(th) day of experiment according to puberty periods of rats. Testes were fixed in Bouin's solution and embedded in paraffin. The paraffin-embedded sections were processed for standard immunohistochemistry by the labelled streptavidin-biotin technique. During the experimental period, the ethanol exposed group consumed ethanol approximately 12g/kg/d. The immunoreactivity of IGF-IR wits significantly (p lower than 0.05) depressed on 41(th), 50(th) and 70(th) day in spermatids, and 50(th) day in Leydig cells in ethanol exposed group in contrary to that of sucrose group. As a result, it was concluded that the degradation in IGF-IR caused by ethanol affected the paracrine and autocrine mechanism of IGF-I in testicular cells and thus resulting in the corruption in spermatogenesis and delay in sexual maturation.