EFFECTS OF ANTI-CANCER AGENTS ON CULTURED RAT SERTOLI CELLS

Abstract

We performed primary immature Sertoli cell culture to investigate whether or not anticancer agents would have a direct effect on rat Sertoli cells. Sertoli cells, isolated from testes of 18-day-old rats, were cultured in pellets with medium for 5 days. The concentration of transferrin in cultured medium were measured as the function of Sertoli cells.
The anti-cancer agents cis-diamminedichloroplatinum (CDDP), adriamycin and vinblastin were selected for this study, and added to the culture medium. CDDP decreased the level of transferrin concentration in cultured medium, namely 0.5μg/ml of CDDP resulted in 54.9% of the transferrin concentration in the medium compared with that without any anti-cancer agents (p<0.05), and 1.0μg/ml of CDDP produced transferrin concentrations of 57.5% and 46.2% (p<0.05), respectively. Adriamycin (0.4μg/ml) and vinblastin (0.5μg/ml) produced transferrin concentrations of 35.2% and 31.3% in cultured medium (p<0.05), respectively.
These findings revealed that anti-cancer agents have direct damaging effects on rat Sertoli cells.