The effect of lycopeneon testicular parameters in Mehraban ram

Lycopene is an aliphatic hydrocarbon that has antioxidant properties and is capable to collect and neutralize free radicals. The purpose of this experiment was to investigate the effect of lycopene on the reproduction of Mehraban ram.

In this experiment 20 male lambs aged 6 months, weighted 27±0.5 kg after clinical confirmation and vaccination (Food and mouth disease (FMD), Agalaxy and Enterotoxaemia) were selected. Lambs divided to 2 experimental groups with 10 replications. After two weeks of acclimatization, the lambs reared 100 days. The animal groups composed control (basic diet) and treatment basic diet + lycopene 5 gr/day. The lambs were fed twice per day, morning and evening. The water was freely available. At the end of the experimental period, after 24 hours of deprivation of feed, all lambs were slaughtered and testes were removed from the scrotum. Macroscopic traits were measured. Testis samples were fixed in formalin 10% for histology sections and microscopic features. Data of experiment were analyzed using a completely randomized design using SAS 2003 software and the means were compared with Duncan (P<0.05).

Application of lycopene significantly increased the thickness of the germinal epithelium and decreased the lumen diameter of seminiferous tubules compared to the control treatment (P˂0.05). No significant difference was observed in seminiferous tubules diameter and macroscopic traits.

The results of this experiment showed that lycopene has positive effects on the seminiferous tubules parameters of testis in ram.