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. 2015 Jun 8;5:11170. doi: 10.1038/srep11170

Figure 2. Mitochondrial damage, ROS analysis, abnormal sperm morphology analysis after treatment with different concentrations of AgNPs.

Figure 2

(a) The mitochondrial sheath in control and AgNP-treated sperm cells was analyzed using TEM. Arrows indicate swelling of mitochondria in the mitochondrial sheath. (b) Determination of mitochondrial copy number in AgNPs-exposed sperms in presence or absence of NAC pre-treatment. The mtDNA/ACTB ratio, which represents the average copy number per sperm cell, was determined by qPCR. (c & d) ROS in NAC-pretreated or untreated sperm cells after exposure to AgNPs was analyzed using flow cytometry by staining with DCFH-DA-FITC. (e) A representative sperm morphological pattern, which was observed by phase contrast microscopy. (f) A minimum of 100 sperm cells per replicate with three replicates were investigated for morphology analysis and classified into five categories: normal morphology, detached head, coiled tail, roll tail, and bent tails. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, and ***p < 0.001 versus the control group (Dunnett’s t-tests).