Background: Aging has a deleterious effect on the morphology of the male reproductive system which might, in turn, lead to changes in spermatogenesis and consequently, decrease in both quality and quantity of spermatozoa.
Materials and methods: The present study elucidated the histological and ultrastructural changes of testes of adult albino rats during aging and applied morphometric measures to obtain quantitative data for these changes. The oxidative and antioxidative markers of aged testes were also assessed.
Results: The results documented the presence of age-related regressive structural changes of the testis accompanied with an increase in the apoptosis and a decrease in the proliferative capacity.
Conclusions: The biochemical results gave evidence of an imbalance between the oxidative damage and the antioxidant defence indicating increased oxidative stress of aged testis.
Keywords: aging; apoptosis (caspase-3); morphological changes; oxidative markers; proliferative cell nuclear antigen (PCNA); testis; ultrastructure.