Effect Of NEMP On The Reproductive System Of Male Rats And Their Offspring

The effects of nuclear electromagnetic pulse(NEMP)on the reproductive system and offspring were studied continue to previous work on the heart and liver of SD rats.In this paper,the male SD rats were exposed to NEMP under different electric intensity(E=110 kV/m,297 kV/m,873 kV/m)and pulse number(N=5,100),and the damage and subsequent recovery of the reproductive system were investigated.Furthermore,the growth,learning and memory ability of the offspring generated by those unrecovered male rats were studied.First of all,the effects of NEMP exposure on the sexual function of male rats were investigated by using Elisa assay to detect the testosterone content in blood plasma;Then,the damage and subsequent recovery of the testicular tissue was investigated via superoxide dismutase(SOD)and malondialdehyde(MDA)Elisa assay,and the apoptosis rate of spermatogenic cells was studied by means of TUNEL.Finally,the effect of NEMP exposure on sperm quality was investigated with the acrosin activity detecting with ELISA,and the sperm motility analysis with CASA.In order to know whether the reproductive impairment affects the growth and development of offspring,the pregnant time of the female rats,the sex ratios,and the weight gain of offspring were recorded,and the spatial learning ability and memory of the adult offspring was studied by water Maze experiment.The experimental results showed that the sexual function of SD male rats has not been significantly affected,for the content of serum testosterone trend to decrease without significant difference before and after NEMP exposure.the SOD activity in testicular tissrue significantly decreased while the content of MDA in testicular tissue increased after NEMP exposure,and the apoptosis rate of spermatogenic cells in seminiferous tubules also significantly increased,which implies that NEMF impact the testicular tissue.Though the motion behavior of mature sperm in epididymis has not been affected,the viability and the acrosine activity of the sperm decreased after NEMP exposure,which indicates that the quality of the sperm was impaired.Fortunately,all the impacted indexes in the reproductive system gradually recovered with a different recovering rate.The seventy of the impairment and its recovering time is exposure dose dependent:the higher the electric field intensity is,and the more the pulse number is,the more serious the impairment is,and the longer the recovering time is needed.The periodic repetitive exposure has accumulative impairment on the reproductive system of male rats.Compared to the single exposure,28 times of exposure shows a lower level of serum testosterone and SOD content,but a higher level of MDA content and apoptosis rate of spermatogenic cells.In additional,the viability and acrosome activity of mature sperm in epididymis are also lower than that under the single exposure.What's more,a longer recovery time is needed.When E=873 kV/m,N=100,the SOD,MDA,sperm acrosin activity and other indexes have not recovered to the sham level till the tenth day,When mating with female rats under a condition that the indexes of reproductive system have not fully recovered from the exposure impairment,the pregnant time of female rats,the growth of offspring,and the spatial learning and memory ability of the adult offspring seem to have not been significantly affected,except that the female/male ratio of offspring trends to be slightly higher.This implies that the male rats will spontaneously avoid producing abnormal offspring via eliminating the impaired spermatogenic cells and sperm.