Abstract

Deer skin glue, extracted from deer skin under high temperature and pressure, was a kind of traditional Chinese materia medica, whose tonifying function was recorded a lot. This experiment aimed to investigate its effects on sexual organ index, the level of testosterone (T), luteinizing hormone (LH), endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS) and phosphodiesterase-5(PDE5) expressions in corpus cavernosum. It was discovered that the levels of LH (0.31 ± 0.19 mIU/ml) significantly increased, even when in rats with low dose of deer skin glue compared with the level in control group (0.14 ± 0.01 mIU/ml), while the levels of T (4.03 ± 0.43 ng/ml) significantly increased in rats with mid-dose deer skin glue with respect to that (2.53 ± 0.40 ng/ml) in control group. The expressions of eNOS and PDE5 were significantly enhanced in experimental group. Seminal vesicle and prostate index significantly increased in rats with high-dose deer skin glue, whereas there was no remarkable difference in testis or penis index between experimental and control groups.

Key words: Deer skin glue, sexual hormones, sexual organ index, endothelial nitric oxide synthase, phosphodiesterase-5.