Protective effect of Acetyl L-Carnitine on testis gonadotoxicity

Cisplatin with a wide usage area, is used widely in the treatment of various cancer types which can be seen in the adults such as the urogenital system cancers, central nervous system tumours, advanced ovarian cancers, nonseminomatosis testis tumours, vesica urinaria, prostate, cervix, esophagus, breast and head and neck cancers as well as the various childhood tumours such as the neuroblastoma, Wilms tumour, hepatoblastoma, brain tumours, germ cell tumours, osteosarcoma.Despite the strong antitumor activity of cisplatin, some frequently seen and unintended, dose limiting adverse effects are specified such as gonadotoxity, nephrotoxicity and neurotoxicity. After cisplatin enters in the cell, it activates lots of signal conduction pathways and increases ROS production by causing apoptosis, necrosis, oxidative stress, fibrogenesis, inflammation, hypoxy and mitochondrial damage in the cell.In this study, it is aimed to evaluate the protective effects of L-carnitine which is known with its antioxidant properties, on the structural changes which can occur on the testis tissues of the cisplatin-applied rats. In order to evaluate the organs; H&E, caspase 3, 8, 9 and TUNEL methods as immunochemically are applied on the tissues for their histochemical morphometry and histomorphology analysis. Also their sperm morphologies are evaluated by the TESE method.In the evaluations performed; it is observed that statistically significant weight loss is present in the Cisplatin-applied group, central interstitial edema is present in the testis, the germ cell series are separated from the tubule wall and they are free in the lumen, in the lumen of some tubules, a cell desquamation is present, and giant spermatogonium forms are observed in some of the spermatogoniums which cannot be separated from the tubule wall, lumen extension is seen as a result of the dilution on the seminiferous tubule wall, and the sperm morphologies are seen abnormally.In the L-carnitine+cisplatin group, it is determined that a significant decrease is present in these findings.As a result, it is decided that the gonadotoxic effects which cisplatin has formed on the rat testis tissues have prevented the antioxidant effects of the gonadotoxic effects both by histomorphologically and morphemetrically and by apoptotically by the prophylactic application of known L-carnitine.Today, the studies regarding to the protection of the testicular root cells of the cancer patients receiving chemotherapy against the effects of chemotherapy still continue.As a result of this study, we think that the preventive effect of the prophylactically applied L-carnitine on the apoptosis which is formed by the gonadotoxic effect of cisplatin can contribute in the investigations performed about this subject.