Effects of N-Acetylcysteine on FAS Gene Expression Level in Testicular Tissue of Acrylamide-Treated Adult Rats

Acrylamide (ACR) is a chemical with toxic effects on various body tissues. The present study was conducted to investigate the antioxidant effect of N-acetylcysteine (NAC) on the level of testicular apoptosis in acrylamide-treated adult rats.

Thirty-six adult male Wistar rats were randomly divided into 6 equal groups. The intact control group was without treatment, the positive control group (PC) received 50 mg/kg ACR by oral gavage, the negative control group (NC) received 40 mg/kg NAC intraperitoneally, the animals in experimental groups of 1 (EXP1), 2 (EXP2) and 3 (EXP3) received 10, 20 and 40 mg/kg NAC intraperitoneally, respectively, and then all groups received 50 mg/kg acrylamide by oral gavage. The treatment period in all groups was 28 days. At the end of the study, FAS mRNA expression level was measured by real-time PCR and testicular tissue was evaluated histopathologically.

The PC group showed a significant increase in FAS gene expression level (p<0.05) and spermatogenic degradation compared to the intact control and NC groups. The EXP1 and EXP2 groups showed decrease in FAS gene expression level (p˃0.05) and spermatogenesis improvement in a dose-dependent manner while the EXP3 group exhibited a significant decrease in FAS gene expression level (p˂0.05) and complete spermatogenesis recovery compared to the PC group.

The findings indicate that ACR increases apoptosis and destroys spermatogenesis by increasing FAS gene expression levels. In contrast, at the maximum dose (40 mg/kg), NAC could inhibit ACR-induced apoptosis by reducing FAS gene expression and improves spermatogenesis in rats.