Protective Effect of Lycium barbarum Polysaccharides Against Doxorubicin‐induced Testicular Toxicity in Rats

The present study aimed to investigate whether Lycium barbarum polysaccharides (LBP) would protect against doxorubicin (DOX)‐induced testicular toxicity. Male Sprague‐Dawley rats were treated with distilled water (4 mL/kg) or LBP (200 mg/kg, p.o.) daily for 10 days and followed by saline (0.9 %, 10 mL/kg) or DOX (10 mg/kg) intravenous injection at day 7. Pretreatment with LBP ameliorated DOX‐induced reduction in the testicular weights, sperm concentrations and percentage of motile sperms, as well as the increase in abnormal sperm rate. LBP administration to DOX‐treated rats successfully reversed the changes in MDA and GHS‐Px levels. Compared with the control, pretreatment with LBP significantly increased the plasma testosterone level in the LBP + DOX group. The histopathology examinations further confirmed that LBP effectively attenuated DOX‐induced severe degenerative changes of seminiferous tubules. This study illustrated the capability of LBP in attenuating testicular oxidative stress and protecting testis‐specific toxicity in DOX‐exposed rats.