Abstract
Energy balance is essential for normal reproduction of ram. However, the effect of energy restriction (ER) on reactive oxygen species (ROS) of sheep Leydig cells (LCs) and the rescuee methods are still unclear. To investigate the in vitro effect of melatonin on cellular ROS in fER-treated sheep LCs and explore the underlying mechanism, Hu sheep LCs were restricted energy using no serum culture medium and resaved with 10 ng/ml melatonin, respectively. The results showed that ER significantly increased MDA level, while decreased CAT, GHS-px expression and ΔΨm (p < 0.05). Meanwhile, ER decreased testosterone concentration and cell proliferation rate (p < 0.05). And the expression of testosterone synthesis-related enzymes was also down-regulated by ER (p < 0.05). Furthermore, we revealed that melatonin reversed the defective phenotypes in ER-treated LCs via Sirt1/Sod2 pathway. The interference of Sirt1 abolished the melatonin-mediated improvement of cellular ROS and testosterone secretion. Taken together, our study firstly indicated that melatonin could alleviate the excessive ROS accumulation and promote testosterone biosynthesis in ER-treated sheep LCs via the activation of Sirt1/Sod2 pathway.