Abstract

Toxoplasma gondii infection is wide spread in Iraq that is why this study was carried out to detect its presence in semen samples of infected male rats experimentally. Impression smears, real time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and histopathological changes were used for detection of T. gondii. The current study included the isolation of local strains of T. gondii from placenta of women that experienced abortion that had toxoplasmosis history, 0.3 ml of suspension contained 100 tissue cyst per rat injected interperetonially in 40 rats. Eight weeks post inoculation, rats were sacrificed then dissected and epididymis was immediately removed. Impression smear were made from semen stained with eosin-nigrosin as initial diagnosis of infection confirmed by the presence of cysts of parasite. This confirmation is dependent on the molecular diagnosis by real time PCR which successfully detected the parasite in 90.3% of rats inoculated with aborted placenta suspension. Some histological changes in testicular tissue were collapse and shrinkage in somniferous tubules with multinucleated giant cells with vacuolar degeneration of lydig cell. These finding suggest that T. gondii infection cause a temporary impairment and insufficiency in male reproductive activity with probability of transmission of the parasite in semen to females or to other animals such as cats.

Key words: Testes, placenta, semen, real time polymerase chain reaction (PCR), impression, interperitonially, reproductive, male.