This study presents the effects of prenatal ethanol exposure on the morphology
of the seminiferous tubules of the testes in the adult male rat. Timed-pregnant
adult female Wistar rats (average weight 200 g) were given daily intragastric
intubation of 5.8 g/kg ethanol between gestation days 9 and 12. Pair-fed
and ad lib-fed animals served as controls. The pups were weighed at birth and
weaned at 30 days. At 42 days of age the male offspring (n = 10) from each
group were anaesthetised and the testes removed and weighed. Another set
of male rats from each group (n = 6), were anaesthetised, whole body perfused
and the testes removed and processed for paraffin embedding. Sections
were subjected to morphological analysis and morphometric measurements
based on computerised techniques following haematoxylin and eosin, PAS
and reticulin staining.
The results demonstrated that prenatal ethanol exposure induced persistent
growth retardation and a 66% reduction in testicular weight and severely altered
the morphology of the seminiferous tubules of adult male rats, causing
a reduction in the cross-sectional area of the tubules by 18%, germinal epithelium
thickness by 21% (p < 0.001) and an inhibition of spermatogenesis. The
study showed the absence of reticulin fibres in the peritubular tissue of seminiferous
tubules of prenatal ethanol-exposed adult male rats. The results imply
that damage following prenatal ethanol exposure occurs irreversibly in utero
and persists into adulthood in the exposed animals, which may have implications
for male fertility
