Ultrastructural and histological study of testicular torsion-detorsion on rat and protective effects of fibroblast and macrophage conditioned medium

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 1- Department of Basic Sciences, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Urmia University, Urmia, Iran 2- Department of Anatomy, Faculty of Medicine, Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences, Sari, Iran

2 Department of Basic Sciences, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Urmia University, Urmia, Iran

3 Department of Surgery and Diagnostic Imaging, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Urmia University, Urmia, Iran

4 Department of Immunology, Faculty of Medicine, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

10.30466/vrf.2025.2054725.4681
Abstract
Testicular torsion-detorsion (TD) or ischemia/reperfusion causes reactive oxygen species over-production and has extensive destructive effects on testicular tissue. Following TD, this study evaluated the therapeutic effects of conditioned medium (CM) of fibroblast, macrophage, and co-culture on testicular histomorphometric and ultrastructure. Adult rats were divided into 7 groups. Healthy control, Control sham, TD, and Dulbecco's Modified Eagle Medium (DMEM) groups. Experimental groups: fibroblast, macrophage, and co-culture. 10µl supernatant was obtained from the separate cultures of fibroblasts, and macrophages and co-culture were injected. All injections were made through rete testis. 35 days after the operation, the testis was sampled for histomorphometric and ultrastructural studies. However, the ultrastructural study of testicular tissue also showed that extensive changes occurred in Sertoli cells' nucleus, nucleolus, and mitochondria. This study showed that in fibroblast and slightly less in macrophage groups, there were good improvements in all histomorphometric and ultrastructure parameters similar to the healthy control group. It was also shown that the DMEM group had slightly better recovery conditions than the TD group, but the co-culture group showed similar conditions to the TD. Overall, it can be concluded that the CM of fibroblast was very effective. In the groups receiving fibroblastic and macrophage CM, all parameters exhibited favorable improvement but in the fibroblast group, most of the parameters were similar to those in the healthy controls group. It was also shown that the CM of fibroblast-macrophage co-culture could not be improved on TD condition but made it worsened.

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Articles in Press, Accepted Manuscript
Available Online from 09 May 2026

  • Receive Date 01 March 2025
  • Revise Date 22 August 2025
  • Accept Date 11 October 2025