P-1: Morphine Has Detrimental Effects on Sperm Parameters, Chromatin Quality and DNA Integrity in Mice

Background Morphine as a natural alkaloid (opiate) is considered as one of the problems associated with poor semen production and sperm quality. For the first time, this experimental study was carried out to evaluate the impact of intra-peritoneal injection of morphine on sperm parameters, chromatin quality and DNA integrity of spermatozoa aspirated from cauda epididymis of mice. MaterialsAndMethods Totally 24 adult male balb/c mice (8 weeks old. 30 g) were equally divided into 3 groups (n=8). Mice of group 1 served as control fed on basal diet, group 2 received basal diet and normal saline and group 3 received basal diet and morphine (15 mg/kg/daily, intraperitoneal) for 35 days. Finally, the right tail of epididymis of each animal was removed and placed in Ham’s F10 for 30 min. Released spermatozoa were used to analyze count, motility, viability (eosin-nigrosin staining), morphology (Papanicolaou stain), chromatin quality with Toluidine blue (TB) and apoptosis via TUNEL assay. Results In morphine-treated mice a significant decrease was found in sperm viability, normal morphology, count and motility compared to other groups (P