Apigenin and Baicalin, each alone or in low-dose combination, attenuated chloroquine induced male infertility in adult rats

Introduction: Male infertility is a worldwide health problem, which accounts for about 50% of all cases of infertility and considered as the most common single defined cause of infertility. Recently, apigenin and baicalin exhibited a powerful antioxidant and antiapoptotic activities. Consequently, in the present study, we evaluated the possible protective effect of apigenin and baicalin, either alone or in low-dose combination, on a rat model of male infertility, regarding for its effects on the hormonal assay, testicular weight, sperm parameters, oxidative-stress state, apoptosis, and histopathological changes. Material and methods: 12-week-old adult male Wister rats received 10 mg/kg/d chloroquine orally for 30 days to induce male infertility. Either apigenin (30 or 15 mg/kg/d), baicalin (100 or 50 mg/kg/d) or a combination of 15 mg/kg/d apigenin and 50 mg/kg/d baicalin received daily orally 1 h after chloroquine for 30 days, used to protect against chloroquine induced male infertility. Results and conclusion: Our result showed that both apigenin and baicalin, significantly and dose-dependently enhanced the reduced levels of serum testosterone, follicular stimulating, and luteinizing hormones (LHs), testicular weight, reduced-glutathione (GSH) level, and catalase (CAT) activity, sperm count, mobility, and viability, and suppressed the elevated testicular malondialdehyde (MDA) level, and caspase-3 immunohistochemical expression, as well as they, abrogated the disturbed testicular histopathological pictures, induced by chloroquine, with superiority of baicalin. Furthermore, the low-dose combination therapy was as effective as the high dose apigenin therapy, except for sperm viability, where it was as powerful as the baicalin high dose. Therefore, both apigenin and baicalin either alone or in low-dose combination could be promising in the management of male infertility.