Pelin Toros; Fatih Oltulu; Ibrahim Tuglu; Aysegül Uysal; Emine Özçinar; Nevbahar Turgan; Hadi Rouhrazi & Hüseyin Aktug

Diabetes is a metabolic disorder characterized by high blood sugar levels and it causes complications in many systems, including the reproductive system. As a result of diabetic conditions, one of the mechanisms that can cause repression of reproductive activity is testicular oxidant stress. The identification of diabetes on the cell signaling molecules axis is still under discussion. The aim of this study was to determine the effect of Transforming Growth Factor (TGFβ), Nuclear Factor kappa B (NF-κB), Heat-schock 90β (HSP90β) signal pathways and E-cadherin cell adhesion molecule on infertility in diabetic rat testicular tissue. In our study, includes histological, molecular and biochemical analysis of testicular tissue removed at the end of the 2 weeks experiment period. A total of 14 adult male rats were divided as control and diabetes. No intervention was given to 7 male rats in the control group. For the diabetic group, 7 male rats were injected by intraperitoneal with a single dose of 55 mg/kg streptozotocin (STZ). TGFβ, NF-κB, HSP90β and E-cadherin proteins were immunohistochemically studied to investigate possible tissue damage, inflammatory process, cell stabilization and integrity due to diabetes. In order to determine oxidant stress, lipid peroxidation product malondialdehyde (MDA), glutathione (GSH) and glutathione peroxidase (GPx) analyzes were performed. Fibrosis, inflammatory changes and loss of spermatogenetic series are prominent findings in the diabetic group. On analysis of all the samples with immunostaining, in the diabetic group, TGFβ and NF-κB immunoexpression significantly increased, while Hsp90β and E-cadherin immunoexpression significantly decreased compared with control groups. Expe- rimental diabetes was found to cause fibrosis, inflammation, disrupting cell adhesion and stabilization in testicular tissue. These results suggest that cellular therapy studies are needed for possible damage.

KEY WORDS: Diabetes; Testis; TGFβ; Hsp90β; NF-κB; E-cadherin.

TOROS, P.; OLTULU, F.; TUGLU, I.; UYSAL, A.; ÖZÇINAR, E.; TURGAN, N.; ROUHRAZI, H. & AKTUG, H. Histological investigation of experimentally induced diabetes effects on the distribution of transforming growth factor (TGFβ), nuclear factor kappa B (Nf-κB), heat schock 90β (Hsp90β) and E-cadherin proteins in testicular tissue. Int. J. Morphol., 39(1):18-24, 2021.