X-rays induced changes in testicular lipids containing long and very long chain polyunsaturated fatty acids

ORESTI GM; AYUZA ARESTI PL; GIGOLA G; REYES LE; PEDICONI MF; AVELDAÑO MI

Pinamar, Argentina

Congreso; X Congress of Panamerican Association for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (PABMB), XLI Annual Meeting of the Argentine Society For Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (SAIB) and XX Annual Meeting of the Argentine Society for Neurochemistry (SAN); 2005

Panamerican Association for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (PABMB),Argentine Society For Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (SAIB) and Argentine Society for Neurochemistry (SAN)

Therapeutic doses of radiation applied to the testis is known to result in oligospermia or aspermia. Differentiating spermatogonia are killed by apoptosis, resulting in depletion of cells in more advanced stages of spermatogenesis. In this work adult rats were irradiated locally by 6.5 Gy of X-rays produced by a linear accelerator to study the effects of irradiation on testicular lipids, focusing on those that contain long and very long chain (VLC, C24-C32) polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA). The testicular weight decreased with time due to a substantial reduction of cells of the germ line. Six weeks after irradiation, sphingomyelin and ceramide were reduced, completely loosing their VLCPUFA. A galactoglycolipid typical of germ cells, seminolipid, was undetectable. There was also a marked decrease of the major glycerophospholipids, including diacyl- and plasmenyl- subclasses, as well as the neutral glycerides, all showing marked depletion of their major PUFA, mainly 22:5n-6, followed by 20:4n-6. The amount of cholesterol esters increased considerably, mostly due to an accumulation of 22:5n-6, the VLCPUFA typical of this lipid augmenting to a lesser extent. The results suggest that the cholesterol esters accumulate in the somatic cells remaining after irradiation, whereas seminolipid, the sphingolipids and glycerophospholipids decrease as a result of germ cell depletion.