The present study was undertaken to investigate the effect of chronic treatment with two sublethal doses of Carbofuran (carbamate insecticide) and Glyphosate (organophosphorus herbicide) on body weight and semen characteristics in mature male New Zealand white rabbits. Pesticide treatment resulted in a decline in body weight, libido, ejaculate volume, sperm concentration, semen initial fructose and semen osmolality. This was accompanied with increases in the abnormal and dead sperm and semen methylene blue reduction time. The hazardous effect of these pesticides on semen quality continued during the recovery period, and was dose-dependent. These effects on sperm quality may be due to the direct cytotoxic effects of these pesticides on spermatogenesis and/or indirectly via hypothalami-pituitary-testis axis which control the reproductive efficiency.

A sensitive sperm-motility test for the evaluation of cytotoxic effects of carbofuran and glyphosate in a defined protein-free culture medium is described. The sperm motility was compared to that obtained with a protein-containing medium. The use of protein-free medium considerably increased the sensitivity of sperm cells from rabbit and human to the toxic effects of the pesticide. The respective IC50 values (the concentration needed to cause 50% inhibition of sperm motility) in protein-free medium of carbofuran and glyphosate were 321 and 48.2 microM with human sperm, and 116 and 23.5 microM with rabbit sperm. Whereas, the corresponding values in protein-containing medium were 920 and 740 microM, and 910 and 500 microM with human and rabbit sperm, respectively. Our results show that testing human and rabbit sperm in protein-free medium proves to be a more sensitive method than that in protein-containing medium. Additionally, the use of rabbit sperm is a more sensitive test system than human sperm. This study suggests that the rabbit sperm test appears to have a potential for the assessment of toxicity on human reproduction.

No abstract

This work aims at dislosing the capability of acrylamide in causing genotoxic effect in golden hamster genome. To achieve such a purpose, five different doses that ranged from 1 to 20 mg/ kg b. wt. were chosen and tested employing three genotoxic bioassays. These assays are : 1-Estimation of cell proliferation, 2-Analysis of chromosomal abnormalities; and 3-In vivo induction of sister chromatid exchanges.The results obtained showed that all tested doses were found to be toxic and cellular toxicity was observed. Analysis o chromosomal aberrations revealed that acrylamide is a positive clastogenic agent. Sister chromatid exchange assay indicated that acrylamide is a powerful inducer of primary genetic damage.

This work was planned to investigate the genetic effect of the oral contraceptive drug "Anovlar 1" on human chromosomes. In order to achieve such a purpose, Heparinized blood samples were collected from healthy adults. Lymphocyte cells were isolated and cultures were performed at 37 ‫؛‬C for 72 hrs. The results obtained showed that the tested drug was proven to be a positive clastogen, since Cmetaphases; stickiness; fragments and polyploidy were observed in a concentrationresponse relationship. The result, however, revealed that the tested drug has clastogenic activity upon human genome.