Ghrelin effects on in vivo fertilization rate and litter size in mice.

PORETTI MB; BIANCONI S; MARTINI AC; LUQUE EM; VINCENTI LM; CARLINI V

Córdoba

Congreso; XX Jornada de Investigación de la Facultad de Ciencias Médicas; 2019

Male sexual behavior is highly regulated by neuroendocrine interactions. Testosterone is a key hormone for male sexual development and sexualbehavior. Ghrelin (Ghrl) is a growth hormone secretagogue peptide that is being investigated for its implications on the reproductive system. In previousstidies, our group has demonstrated that Ghrl chronic administration decreases plasma testosterone concentration and affects quality and concentrationof sperm. That is why we studied the impact of intrahypothalamic Ghrl treatment on fertilization index in vivo and litter size.Males were treated for 42 days with cerebrospinal fluid (control) or Ghrl 3.0 nmol/day administered in the hypothalamus and 3 days before the end oftreatment, males were housed with untreated females on the afternoon of proestrus and the existence of copulation was analyzed. 18 days aftercopulation, offspring number and litter size was analyzed. Additionally, reproductive function of treated animals was evaluated in vitro, using untreatedfemales. The data were analyzed by ANOVA followed by an LSD test, N = 6-8 animals / group.Treatment with Ghrl 3.0 nmol / day significantly increases the percentage of embryonic loss (F = 2.58, df = 2, p <0.05) and the number of atrophiedfetuses (F = 2.24, df = 2, p <0.05) in females that copulated with treated animals. Therewere no significant differences between other parametersevaluated (in vivo fertilization rate, number of fetuses / litter size, litter weight, average weight of the offspring, number of corpus lutea). No significantdifferences were observed in the percentage of oocytes fertilized in vitro in animals treated with Ghrl with respect to control animals (p> 0.05).Ghrelin treatment did not affect the fertilization rate, however, it produced an increase in the percentage of embryonic loss in vivo.