Potential chemoprotective role of resveratrol against cisplatin induced testicular damage in mice

•Quest for alternative methods to treat chemotherapy-induced infertility.•Role of resveratrol against cisplatin induced testicular damage.•An alternative therapy using plant products will be developed to treat chemotherapy-induced male infertility in future.

Semen banking is often advised to male patients undergoing chemotherapy as the damage induced is profound and often irreversible. However, low success rates of assisted reproductive techniques (ART) using banked semen have led to the quest for alternative methods to treat chemotherapy-induced infertility. The present study therefore aimed to study the role of resveratrol against cisplatin induced testicular damage. Male albino mice were divided into five groups (n = 6 each), viz. normal control, resveratrol vehicle (4% ethanol), Cisplatin (7.5 mg/kg b.wt/week for 4 weeks), Resveratrol (1 mg/kg b.wt./orally for 28 days) and Resveratrol and Cisplatin combination group. Cisplatin treatment led to an increase in the activity of lactate dehydrogenase and an increase in the levels of lipid peroxidation. Glutathione levels were found to decrease with a concomitant increase in the levels of oxidized glutathione and altered status of antioxidant enzymes. Increased DNA fragmentation was also evident which was further confirmed by histopathological and FT-IR analysis. Resveratrol treatment in combination with cisplatin showed great promise in bringing down the damage statistics to near normal values in most of the parameters studied. Further studies in this direction are however needed to develop an alternative to current procedures adopted to treat chemotherapy-induced male infertility.