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Fresh tuberous roots of Butea superba Roxb. were collected from Chiang Rai province, Thailand. The plant specimens was authenticated and compared to herbarium specimen (BCU 11046) at the herbarium of the Department of Botany, Faculty of Science, Chulalongkorn University.
Mice were divided into 6 groups with 10 animals each. Before treatment (pre-treatment), blood and sperm of all mice in these groups were collected for comparison to those of the post-treatment. During treatment period, control (Con), Butea superba Roxb. crude extract (Cru), sildenafil (Sil), fraction B (FrB), fraction C (FrC), and fraction E (FrE) mice, were fed with either 0.5 ml of distilled water, 1, 250, 10, 40, 50, and 150 mg/kg BW/day, respectively. The animal’s weight was recorded every day throughout 14 consecutive days. At the end of treatment period, all mice were sacrificed and subjected to necropsy. The heart, liver, spleen, kidney, stomach and the reproductive organs (testis, seminal vesicle and prostate glands) were examined. The blood and sperm were collected to compare sperm motility, sperm count, haematology, testosterone level and blood chemistry with pre-treatment in each mouse and between groups.
The results exhibited that there were significant increases in testosterone level of all post-treated groups compared to pre-treatment (p<0.01) except for the control. In addition, the increase in testosterone level of fraction C treated groups was the highest and this level of both fractions C and E treated groups were significantly higher than those of other groups (p<0.01). Apart from this, the results showed significant increase in sperm number of all post-treated groups compared to pre-treatment (p<0.01) except for control. Fraction C also showed the highest sperm number. Besides, the sperm number of crude extract, sildenafil, fractions B and E treated groups were significantly higher than control group (p<0.01). These results were confirmed by sperm morphology micrographs.
These findings provide evidence that Butea superba extract in fractions C and E and sildenafil can increase testosterone level, sperm number and motility of mice compared to control group. These results can be explained by assuming that genistein, unknown compound 1 and biochanin A may play important role.
Griangsak Eumkeb, Wanatkamol Naknarong and Kittipot Sirichaiwetchakoon
School of Pharmacology, Institute of Science, Suranaree University of Technology, Nakhon Ratchasima 30000, Thailand.
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