Effects of medicinal plant Silybum marianum on core diameter and DNA fragmentation in the sperm of rams Farahani treated with cadmium

The sperm used in the current study was collected from the testis epidydim of slaughtered Farahani's ram and divided to four groups. There are 106 sperms in each sample. The experimental treatments included sperm at 0 hour, sperm at 180 minutes (control), sperm treated with cadmium chloride (10μM) for 180 minutes and sperm treated with silymarin (5 μM) and cadmium chloride (10 μM) for 180 minutes. Diff-Quick staining was used to investigate the apoptosis morphological features in sperm nucleus. Also, acridine orange staining and sperm chromatin dispersion (SCD) test were used for estimation of sperm DNA fragmentation. Data were analyzed using one way ANOVA. Comparison of treatment means was done by Tukey's test at 0.05 confidence level.In this research, the sperm nucleus diameter was significantly (P