ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: Estrogens has traditionally been known as the female hormone, but this idea has been challenged in early 1990’s and an essential physiological role for estrogen in male fertility was identified. Phytoestrogens are naturally occurring non-steroidal plant chemicals that can act like the female hormone estrogen. The herbs ( anise alfalfa and vervain ) chosen in this study contain phytoestrogens. OBJECTIVE: Previous studies demonstrated controversy of the effects of phytoestrogens on the rat testes .Hence, the present investigation was undertaken to investigate the influence of typical dose of herbs containing phytoestrogen on the rat testis. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Twenty-four apparently normal mature male rats were divided into four groups of 6 animals each. The first "control" group received only 4ml of distilled water as a placebo. The second group received 40mg/kg of anise seed; the third group received 53.3 mg/kg of dried herb of vervain and the fourth group received 400 mg /kg of alfalfa seeds. All experimental groups received the doses through orogastric tube daily for fourteen days. Testicular histology was evaluated by light and enzyme histochemistry. Plasma FSH and testosterone concentrations were taken to support our results. RESULTS: Histological examination of anise, alfalfa and vervain – treated groups showed an increase in the height of germinal epithelia. There was marked lipoprotein lipase activity in the whole of the interstitial tissue which is more in amount in experimental groups than that in control group. Acid phosphatase granules were infiltered the seminiferous epithelia mildly in control group , moderately in anise and vervain groups and markedly in alfalfa group. The number of interstitial cells showing marked acid phosphatase activity was higher in all experimental groups than that in control group. Alkaline phosphatase exhibited intense activity in the boundary tissue of the seminiferous tubules in testes of control and experimental groups but it appeared thicker in the latter. CONCLUSION: The low dose and short duration of treatment used in our study made these phytoestrogen – containing herbs to have a stimulatory effect on leydig cell steroidogenesis. This study also demonstrated that aniseed being the most potent of the three herbs followed by alfalfa in stimulating testosterone synthesis. This is possibly attributed to the coumarin constituent of aniseed and alfalfa. KEY WORDS: phytoestrogen-containing herbs, testis, acid phosphatase, alkaline phosphatase, lipoprotein lipase
Aeromonas salmonicida is a fish pathogen and recognized to cause a variety of diseases in humans. There are a few information about A.salmonicida in Iraq and there is no any previous molecular study on it. During the period of December 2017 to May 2018; Sixteen isolates of the A. salmonicida were isolated and identified from 300 common carp (Cyprinus carpio) fishes stomach in aquarium of Erbil city/ Iraq by using manual, automated Vitek 2 compact system, and confirmed by PCR using gene TonB-dependent siderophore (364bp). Antimicrobial susceptibility was determined by disk diffusion method and the results found that all isolates 100% susceptible to imipenem, 100% resistant to nalidixic acid and variable resistan
... Show MoreRandom matrix theory is used to study the chaotic properties in nuclear energy spectrum of the 24Mg nucleus. The excitation energies (which are the main object of this study) are obtained via performing shell model calculations using the OXBASH computer code together with an effective interaction of Wildenthal (W) in the isospin formalism. The 24Mg nucleus is assumed to have an inert 16O core with 8 nucleons (4protons and 4neutrons) move in the 1d5/2, 2s1/2 and 1d3/2 orbitals. The spectral fluctuations are studied by two statistical measures: the nearest neighb
Aim: To determine the expression of tissue inhibitors of metalloproteinases (TIMP-2) in oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) and the difference in its expression level between positive and negative HPV-16 (human papilloma virus- 16) OSCC patients. Methods: This study was conducted on 33 biopsies obtained from patients with OSCC and 10 normal oral mucosa as controls. In situ hybridization (ISH) was used to investigate the presence of HPV-16, while immunohistochemistry (IHC) was used to estimate the expression level of TIMP-2. Results: The TIMP-2 was expressed in 27 (81.8%) of OSCC sections with no significant difference between its expression level in HPV-16 positive and HPV-16 negative OSCC cases (p=0.058). TIMP-2 was found to be hig
... Show MoreIn this work a study and calculation of the normal approach between two bodies, spherical and rough flat surface, had been conducted by the aid of image processing technique. Four kinds of metals of different work hardening index had been used as a surface specimens and by capturing images of resolution of 0.006565 mm/pixel a good estimate of the normal approach may be obtained the compression tests had been done in strength of material laboratory in mechanical engineering department, a Monsanto tensometer had been used to conduct the indentation tests.
A light section measuring equipment microscope BK 70x50 was used to calculate the surface parameters of the texture profile like standard deviation of asperity peak heights, centre lin
A simplified parallel key was presented in this work for the Taxa of Stackys L. wildly grown in Iraq. Three records within this genus were newly recorded to our country in the present work and they are S. kermanshahansis Rech S. setifera C.A. Mey. subsp setifera, S. setifera ssp iranica (Reck.) The characteristics of these new records were also given with some representative specimens.
The research aims to measure the impact of the empowerment strategy on the performance of employees by mediating organizational trust in the organization. The problem of research was the weak ability of most business organizations to employ the strategy of empowerment in maximizing the performance of employees, and the importance of research in practice lies in the results of a guide to managers in how to use the strategy of empowerment in maximizing the performance of employees by mediating organizational trust dimensions of ability, benevolence, integrity. In order to achieve the objectives of the research and to answer the questions of the problem, the researcher has adopted the descriptive analytical approach as the questionnaire was
... Show MoreThe current trend worldwide is searching plant extracts towards prevention of neurodegenerative disorders. This study aimed to investigate the neuroprotective effect of Alpinia galanga leaves (ALE), Alpinia galanga rhizomes (ARE), Vitis vinifera seeds (VSE), Moringa oleifera leaves (MLE), Panax ginseng leaves (PLE) and Panax ginseng rhizomes (PRE) ethanolic extracts on human neuroblastoma (SHSY5Y) cells. The 1‐diphenyl‐1‐picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) radical scavenging of VSE and MLE were 81% and 58%, respectively. Ferric‐reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) of ALE and MLE (33.57 ± 0.20 and 26.76 ± 0.30 μmol Fe(ΙΙ)/g dry wt., respectively) were higher than for the other extracts. Liquid chromatography coupled to quadrupole time‐of‐fli
... Show MoreTime-domain spectral matching commonly used to define seismic inputs to dynamic analysis in terms of acceleration time history compatible with a specific target response spectrum is used in this study to investigate the second-order geometric effect of P-delta on the seismic response of base-isolated high-rise buildings. A synthetic time series is generated by adjusting reference time series that consist of available readings from a past earthquake of the 1940 El Centro earthquake adopted as an initial time series. The superstructure of a 20-story base isolated building is represented by a 3-D finite element model using ETABS software. The results of the base isolated building show that base isolation technique significantly reduces inter-s
... Show MoreIn this research, the covariance estimates were used to estimate the population mean in the stratified random sampling and combined regression estimates. were compared by employing the robust variance-covariance matrices estimates with combined regression estimates by employing the traditional variance-covariance matrices estimates when estimating the regression parameter, through the two efficiency criteria (RE) and mean squared error (MSE). We found that robust estimates significantly improved the quality of combined regression estimates by reducing the effect of outliers using robust covariance and covariance matrices estimates (MCD, MVE) when estimating the regression parameter. In addition, the results of the simulation study proved
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