Treatment of copper nanoparticles (CuNPs) for two spermatogenic cycles impairs testicular activity via down-regulating steroid receptors and inhibition of germ cell proliferation in a mice model

Abstract

Although copper is an indispensable trace metal for biological functions, its excess exposure causes hazardous effects on health. Copper in the form of nanoparticles (CuNPs) is widely used at present and therefore, the living organism is at continuous risk of its adverse effect. The prolonged treatment of CuNPs has not been evaluated yet on the male reproductive system. To demonstrate the combined adverse effects and the mechanism of copper nanoparticles (CuNPs), three doses of CuNPs, 10, 100 and 200 mg/kg were orally given to mice for 70 days. The present study demonstrated that CuNPs decreased the sperm quality parameters, male circulating hormones, induces testicular damages, increased oxidative stress, apoptosis, decreases antioxidant enzymes, germ cell proliferation, and increases the expression of 8-oxoguanine DNA glycosylase-1 (OGG1), apelin receptor (APJ) as well. CuNPs also down-regulated the expression of AR and Erα in the testis. These results suggest that CuNPs manifested their adverse effect on testis via modulating steroid and cytokine (apelin) receptors. The adverse effect of testis was most pronounced at the highest dose (200 mg/kg) of CuNPs, however, other doses show a less toxic effect on various parameters. In conclusion, results indicated that CuNPs may impair spermatogenesis via oxidative stress-mediated DNA damage and germ cell apoptosis at high doses.

Keywords:

• Copper nanoparticles
• Mice
• Testis
• Spermatogenesis
• apoptosis
• proliferation
• oxidative stress

View correction statement:

Correction

Acknowledgment

Nicy Vanrohlu acknowledges the fellowship received at DST/INSPIRE Fellowship (DST/INSPIRE/03/2021/001312) from DST New Delhi. The research infrastructure facility provided to the Department of Zoology, Mizoram University by the DST-FIST program, DST, New Delhi is greatly acknowledged.

Credit authorship statement

VKR, GG, VN: Conceptualization, Experiment design, resources generation of study. VN, MD: Performed the experiments. PM: Performed TEM and selected area electron diffraction of nanoparticles, VKR, GG, VN: Experimental section analysis, Data analysis, Writing of manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s). The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Correction Statement

This article was originally published with errors, which have now been corrected in the online version. Please see Correction (http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17435390.2023.2277993)

Additional information

Funding

Funding received as DST Inspire fellowship to Nicy Vanrohlu (DST/INSPIRE/03/2021/001312) from DST New Delhi.