study of the therapeutic effect of melatonin after food deprivation in apoptosis and oxidative stress in rat testis

objective: the goals of the study are evaluation the effect(s) of food deprivation as a social stress on testis structure. we also investigated the effects of melatonin treatment as an antioxidant component and inequality on the effect(s) of food deprivation. methods: we investigated the improving effects of melatonin and social stress (food deprivation) on 42 male rats in 7 groups including control, sham, melatonin received (m), food deprivation (1/3 of control daily food) plus observation (fd), fd + melatonin (fdm), isolated fd (fdi), and fdi + melatonin (fdmi) groups. after 14 days, rats' testes were studied using immuno histochemistry and tunel assays to determine the number of apoptotic cells. biochemical evaluation was taken on malodialdehide (mda) and glutathione (gsh). anova and tukey's tests were done to analyse the data. presults: the results of sham group was declined for similarity to results of control group. in fd group, mda was increased significantly (pconclusion: food deprivation can induce oxidative stress which is associated with increasment of apoptotic cells in testis. isolation can compensate these effects. these results refer to inequality. since melatonin is recognized for its anti-oxidative and improving effects, we have shown involvement of oxidative stress mechanisms on the stress of food deprivation with inequality.