Mifepristone Ameliorates Sleep Deprivation - Induced Oxidative Stress in the Testis of Rats

Abstract

Sleep deprivation is becoming an everyday experience and has been associated with generation of chronic stress and low level of testosterone. This study aimed to evaluate the influence of mifepristone on testicular oxidative stress and serum inflammatory markers in sleep deprivation induced chronic stress in rats. Twenty five rats were divided into five groups (n=5) and designated as follows: Group 1: Control, Group 2: sleep deprived (SD), Group 3: sleep deprived and sleep recovery (SD+SR), Group 4: sleep deprived mifepristone treated (SD+MIF), Group 5: sleep deprived and recovery mifepristone treated (SD+SR+MIF). Rats were sleep deprived for five days, mifepristone 10mg/kg was given orally for mifepristone treated groups while recovery groups were allowed to recover for five days. At the end of the experiments cortisol, testosterone, interleukin 6 (IL-6) and c reactive protein (CRP) were analysed while testicular malondialdehyde (MDA), catalase (CAT), and glutathione (GSH) were also evaluated. Rats in SD group had significantly increased level of MDA and cortisol, IL-6 and CRP levels (p<0.05), while showing significantly reduced the levels of testosterone, GSH, and CAT (p<0.05). Treatment with mifepristone reversed the changes in the MDA, GSH, CAT, cortisol, testosterone levels (p<0.05), while only sleep deprived recovery (SD+SR) reversed changes in IL-6 and CRP. The present findings indicate that mifepristone possesses antioxidant properties which may ameliorate the imbalance between reactive oxygen species (ROS) and production of antioxidant enzymes in the testis. However, sleep recovery is important in reversing inflammatory changes due to sleep deprived induced chronic stress.