The effect of aqueous extract Gynura procumbens on fertility of diabetes induced male rats using proteomic approach

Medicinal plants or herbs have been long used in traditional practice and considered as an alternative treatment for diseases. Gynura procumbens is one of the herbs that showed high potential for treating various diseases such as diabetes mellitus, cancer and fertility. Previous study demonstrated G. procumbens potential as anti-hyperglycaemic agent by lowering the blood glucose level of diabetic-induced male rats (Hassan et al. 2010). G. procumbens is claimed to emulate the mechanism of action in insulin, by increasing the glucose intake in the skeletal muscle (Hassan et al. 2010). Another study made by Kamaruzaman & Mat Noor (2017) showed that G. procumbens extract has the ability to improve fertility of diabetes-induced male rats. Diabetes mellitus has caused deleterious effect on male reproductive system due to disruption in spermatogenesis, testicular impairment as well as erectile and ejaculation dysfunction (Alves et al. 2013). Testicular impairment in diabetic rats leads to low sperm quality. Hence, proteomic analysis was performed to identify the differential expressions of total sperm protein after treatment of G. procumbens extract.