Abstract
There is a growing interest in understanding the biological effect of
medicinal plants. In the present investigation, the effects of
fenugreek oil administration on the liver and ovarian activity
genetically (i.e., meiotic progression in collected oocytes as well as
changes in DNA and RNA content in the liver and ovarian tissues) and
histopathologically (i.e., alterations in the liver and ovarian
tissues) were examined in mice. Swiss albino female mice were orally
administrated with different doses of fenugreek oil for 10 days. The
mode and magnitude of effect were found to be depending on the dose of
fenugreek oil and type of tissue. Administration with fenugreek oil at
0.1 and 0.15 ml/mouse increased the total number of cumulus-oocyte
complexes as well as improved their quality. Cytogenetically, fenugreek
oil was able to stimulate the oocytes collected from treated mice at
all doses to progress in meiosis. Levels of nucleic acids content in
all groups did not significantly change neither in the DNA nor RNA in
ovarian-or liver-tissues. Histopathological examination of the ovaries
collected from untreated mice as well as from mice treated with 0.05
ml/mouse of fenugreek oil showed no histopathological alterations.
However, ovaries of mice treated with 0.1 or 0.15 ml/mouse of fenugreek
oil showed improvement in several tissues. To our knowledge, this is
the first study that suggests significant stimulating effects of
fenugreek oil on the ovarian activity in mice.