The Acute and Subchronic Effects of Methyl Tertiary Butyl Ether on Some Fertility Indices in The Male Rats

Abstract Background and Objectives: Methyl-tertiary butyl ether (MTBE) is one of the fuel oxygenated additive that is used to reduce the environmental pollution resulting from engine combustion. This study was carried out to evaluate the acute (1 day) and subchronic (30 days) effects of MTBE on some fertility indices in the male rats. Methods: In this study, under two separate experiments (acute and subchronic),the effects of oral MTBE on fertility indices were evaluated in the male rats. In the first experiment (acute), 15 rats and in the second experiment (subchronic), 25 rats were classified to 5 sub groups (control, sham, 400, 800 and 1600 mg/kg/day MTBE). At the end of each experiment, some of the sperm quality parameters (motility, viability and total count) were evaluated. Results: The results of this study showed that  in subchronic experiment, peanut oil as a solvent of MTBE had a significant effect on sperm motility percentage (p<0.05). After multivariate linear regression it was found that oral administration of MTBE at the target concentrations for 30 days had no significant effect on sperm motility, sperm viability and total sperm count (p˃0.05). In addition, the results showed in acute experiment,  MTBE had no significant effect on fertility indices (p˃0.05). Conclusion: The present study showed that oral administration of MTBE in both short and medium term periods had no positive or negative effects on fertility indices in the male rats.