Effects of a ciclophosphamide on mouse sperm morphology

Cyclophosphamide (CP) as an alkylating agent is the most commonly used anticancer and immunosuppressant drug. It is used for the treatment of chronic and acute leukemia, multiple myeloma, lymphomas, rheumatic arthritis, bone marrow transplantation, among other diseases. It is used as positive control in different mutagenesis tests. In this study, they were used two doses (50 y 100 mg/Kg) of CP, with the objective to determinate the induced-abnormality capacity in the NMRI mouse sperm. The Morphology of the Head of the Sperm Cell Test, described by Wyrobek and Bruce in 1975, proposed a system to detect cytogenetic damage in germ cells. It permits to quantify abnormal sperm populations and constitutes a single and rapid in vivo test. The frequency of abnormal heads (amorphous head, banana-shape and no hook) increased significantly in the 100 mg/Kg CP, this results evidence that this substance induces genotoxic damage in mouse germ cells.