Can antioxidants protect against chemotherapy in rat spermatogonial stem cell line?

LAY ABSTRACT: Boys administered chemotherapy to treat childhood cancer are at risk of damage to their healthy testicular tissue, which can lead to infertility in adulthood. Researchers are therefore investigating treatments to protect the testis during cancer treatment. Here, cells originating from the testicles of rats were cultured for four days and exposed to chemotherapy drugs with or without antioxidants for the final two days. Antioxidants can reduce cellular damage by inactivating toxic compounds. Here, the antioxidants melatonin or n-acetylcysteine were tested against chemotherapy agents’ cisplatin, doxorubicin, or vincristine. Cultures were repeated four times, with cell survival measured at the end of culture. The antioxidants themselves were not damaging to the cells and partially protected against cisplatin, although not against doxorubicin. Surprisingly, n-acetylcysteine was found to enhance the damage induced by vincristine. The results suggest that using antioxidants to try to protect the testis could have either beneficial or harmful effects when given alongside different chemotherapy drugs: this is important, considering that patients are often treated with multiple drugs which could react differently to protectants.