Study of Spermatogenesis in Wistar Adult Rats Administrated to Long Term of Ruta graveolens

Background: in iranian folk medicine ruta graveolens has been used for female and male contraceptive. there are few studies about theeffect of this plant on spermatogenesis. objectives: in this study the effect of long term administration of aqueous extract of rg on spermatogenesis has been investigated. materials and methods: animals were allocated into 1) control: which did not receive anything, 2) vehicle which received only normalsaline and 3) experiment: which received ruta extract (300 mg/kg administered by gavage once a day for 100 days). a day after last gavageall the individuals were killed by euthanasia. the right testes and epididymis were extruded. the sperm motility was assessed and classifiedas progressive, no progressive. results: there was a significant decrease in the number of spermatogonia (p < 0.01), primary spermatocyte (p < 0.05) and spermatid (p < 0.05) in experimental group as compared to control and vehicle. as shown in table 3 the sperm count ± sd in 1 gram of epididymis was2597.5 ± 172.39 in vehicle, 2671.8 ± 38.57 in control groups and 607.4 ± 520.19 in experimental group. therefore group 3 has a significantlower sperm count in comparison with other groups (p < 0.05). sperm with progressive motility was 55.25 ± 2.81 in vehicle, 53.42±1.82 incontrol group and 11.16 ± 2.17 in experimental group. statistical analysis show that rats in experimental group have a significant lowersperm motility in comparison with other groups (p < 0.05). there was no difference between other groups (p > 0.05).the fertilizationcapacity of sperm of rats in experimental group was significantly lower than other groups (p > 0.05). conclusions: it is concluded that the aqueous extract of ruta graveolens diminishes the reproductive system activity and might be a usefulsubstance for birth control process.