Systemic inflammation is known to lead to lipid peroxidation, proteins and DNA damage and could be one of the reasons of female infertility. Today nanotechnology is essential to scientific activity and is widely used in the treatment and diagnosis of different diseases. Promising in this respect are nanoparticles of metals, namely — nanoparticulate zero-valent iron (nZVI). However, there are no data regarding possible protective or toxic effects of nZVI on ovarian function, viability of the ovarian follicular cells, thymic and lymph nodes cells and DNA integrity of immune cells under the conditions of systemic immunocomplex damage in female mice.
The aim was to investigate meiotic maturation of oocytes, viability of the ovarian follicular cells, thymic and lymph nodes cells and the integrity of the DNA of immune cells under the conditions of systemic immunocomplex damage in female mice.
The investigation was carried out on non-pregnant female mice with weight 16–20 g, divided into four groups: I — control, II — BSA immunization, III — administration of nZVI, IV — BSA immunization and administration of nZVI. Immunization of mice was performed with increasing doses of antigen — bovine serum albumin (BSA, 150–300 mg/kg of mouse, Sigma, USA) intravenously once a week for 6 weeks. nZVI was administered at a dose of 1.68 mg/kg hour before each immunization. The study was conducted using the methods of culturing oocytes in vitro, double fluorescent vital assay and DNA-comet assay (alkaline).
The results showed that under the conditions of systemic immunocomplex damage administration of nZVI leads to 1) decrease in inhibition of oocyte meiotic maturation; 2) reduction in the inhibition of viability of follicular cells surrounding the oocyte, thymic and lymph nodes cells due to the increase in the number of living cells and the reduction in the number of cells with necrotic and apoptotic morphological features; 3) decline in DNA damage of the thymic and lymph nodes cells.