Abstract

SCREENING OF URSOLIC ACID AS AN IN VIVO ANTIANDROGENIC ACTIVITY IN WISTAR MALE RATS

Jainik Khamar and Dr. Indermeet Singh Anand*

Abstract

This study investigates the antiandrogenic activity of ursolic acid in Wistar albino male rats. Ursolic acid solubility was optimized for uniform distribution in a carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) vehicle. Dosages were derived from the LD50 of ursolic acid, with low and high doses selected as 100mg/kg and 250mg/kg, correspondingly. Rats were randomized to one of four groups: vehicle control, disease control, low dose and high dose. Ursolic acid was administered orally via gavage for consecutively twenty-one days, except cyclophosphamide in the disease control animals by intraperitoneal route (30 mg/kg. bwt.) to induce disease for only last five days of treatment period. Mortality, morbidity, clinical signs, body weight (BW), Testes absolute and relative weight, total sperm count, sperm viability, motility, and morphology, and histopathological parameters of testes were assessed. All animals were euthanized 22nd day of the study. No mortality or morbidity was observed. High-dose ursolic acid significantly reduced absolute and relative testes weight compared to controls. There were significant changes were observed in the sperm motility, viability and morphology in the high dose treated groups. Histopathological analysis showed germ cells, including spermatogonia (SG) primary spermatocytes (Pc), spermatids (St), and Sertoli cells (Sc), Interstitial tissue (IT) containing interstitial cells and Leydig cells (Lc), Spermatozoa (SZ) were not present in the lumen, vacuolation (V), and Germ cells with pyknotic nuclei (PN) in the cyclophosphamide and high dose treated groups. These findings suggest that ursolic acid exhibits antiandrogenic activity in Wistar male rats under the conditions of this study.

Keywords: Ursolic Acid, Antiandrogenic Activity, Male wistar rats.