Vincristine is major player in front line combination chemotherapy for treatment of cancer and shows decrease in testosterone after treatment contributing to reproductive toxicity. Hence, the present research was aimed to study the effect of vincristine on steroidogenic pathway which is responsible for testosterone production in males. Vincristine was intraperitoneally injected to adult male Wistar rats of proven fertility with a dose of 40μg/kg/day dissolved in 0.5 ml of physiological saline for 30 days. Animals were sacrificed at the end of treatment period; their testes were removed and used for further studies. No significant changes were observed in body weight, testis weight and mean relative testis weight. Expression studies of enzymes involved in steroidogenic pathway showed that there was decrease in expression of Steroidogenic acute regulatory (StAR) protein which might be responsible for altered testosterone production.
Keywords
Vincristine, Steroidogenic Pathway, Combination chemotherapy, Western blotting