Assessment of the Quality of Frozen-Thawed Semen or Epididymal Sperm in Three Native Vietnamese Pig Breeds

Abstract

Our aim was to evaluate the quality of ejaculated and epididymal frozen-thawed pig sperm of endangered Vietnam native pig breeds. Ejaculated sperm was collected from live boars and epididymal sperm was collected from slaughtered boars of the MuongTe, Kieng Sat and Co BinhThuan breeds and frozen in 0.25 ml straws using a protocol established earlier for modern pig breeds. We evaluated the sperm quality after thawing in terms of motility and rates of viable and abnormal spermatozoa. Our results revealed that the sperm motility and rates of viable and abnormal frozen-thawed sperm were >30%, >44%, and <14%, respectively. The origin of sperm had an effect on the production of pig embryos in vitro. In the Co BinhThuan breed, ejaculated sperm generated higher cleavage, blastocyst and hatching rates than did the epididymal sperm (60.11% vs 56.02%, 17.23% vs 14.31%, 3.78% vs 2.34%, respectively, P < 0.05). Although no difference in cleavage rate, blastocyst formation rate and the average number of cells/blastocysts, the hatching blastocyst rate was different between the breeds (P > 0.05). In the Co BinhThuan breed, the rate of pregnancy of ejaculated groups was similar to that of the epididymal group. In conclusion, the ejaculated and epididymal sperm of native Vietnamese pigs were successfully frozen. We succeeded in creating embryos in vitro and pregnant pigs after artificial insemination from frozen-thawed semen in three native Vietnamese pig breeds for the first time. The use of the ejaculated sperm improved the production of native pig embryos in vitro efficiency.