Effect of Acrylamide Ingestion on Reproductive Organs of Adult Male Wistar Rats

Introduction: Acrylamide, an industrial toxic chemical, formed naturally in starchy foods, cooked at high temperature. Acrylamide is known to cause reproductive toxicity in male rats and extent of its effect with respect to sperm and histopathological parameters is not well studied. Aim: To evaluate the influence of acrylamide on male reproductive structural and functional alterations. Materials and Methods: We examined the toxic potential of acrylamide doses, including 0 (distilled water), 6.25, 25 mg/kg body weight/day, in 18 adult male Wistar rats administered by oral gavage for 21 days. Body weight was recorded daily, and the animals were sacrificed at the end of treatment. The relative testis and epididymis wet weights were measured. Sperm count, motility, and morphology were assessed from the epididymis sperm reserve. The testis and epididymis were examined for histological abnormalities. One-way ANOVA was used to test the significant difference in the quantitative responses, followed by Tukey HSD pairwise comparison test. Results: The acrylamide decreased the body weight (p<0.001) and epididymis weight (p<0.05) significantly. The epididymal sperm reserve in the high dose group were observed with significant changes in count, motility and morphology. Histologically, the high dose exposed epididymis, showed sloughing and apoptosis of germ cells inducing reduced sperm capacitance and vacuolar degeneration of basal epithelium. The high dose treated testis showed atrophy with reduced luminal diameter. Conclusion: We observed significant reproductive toxicity in male Wistar rats after the acrylamide ingestion, which is similar to the dose of exposure that can be taken in, by that population, who regularly consume food items having acrylamide in it. Hence, our findings strengthened the concern about male reproductive toxicity of acrylamide exposure and demanding the awareness on the same.