Poisonous herb extract may lead to birth control pills for men

Washington, Jan 18 (PTI) A plant extract, traditionallyused by African warriors as a heart-stopping poison on theirarrows, may be used to develop b...

Washington, Jan 18 (PTI) A plant extract, traditionallyused by African warriors as a heart-stopping poison on theirarrows, may be used to develop birth control pill for men, astudy in mice suggests.

Women have many options for oral contraceptives that aresafe, effective and reversible, but despite decades ofresearch, men have none.

Two types of African plants make the poisonous compoundcalled ouabain. Mammals also produce it in their bodies,though at lower levels that are thought to help control bloodpressure; doctors sometimes prescribe small doses of thecompound to treat heart attack patients.

Ouabain disrupts the passage of sodium and calcium ionsthrough the membrane protein, which are are found in cellmembranes and are made up of protein subunits.

Prior clinical studies have shown that ouabain curbsfertility in men. However, ouabain itself is not an option asa contraceptive because of the risk of heart damage.

Researchers, including those from University of Minnesotain the US, set out to design ouabain analogues that are farmore likely to bind to the alpha4 protein in sperm than tosubunits found in heart tissue.

By removing a sugar group from ouabain and also replacingits lactone group with a triazole group, researchers created aderivative that is particularly good at zeroing in on alpha4in sperm cells in rats.

Once bound, it interferes with the cells' ability toswim, which is essential to its role in fertilising an egg,researchers said. The compound had no toxicity in rats.

The contraceptive effect should be reversible becausealpha4 is only found on mature sperm cells.

That means sperm cells produced after stopping treatmentwith the ouabain derivative should not be affected,researchers said. PTI MHNMHN.

This is unedited, unformatted feed from the Press Trust of India wire.

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