Electrophoretic profile of goat seminal proteins

Abstract

This experiment was carried out to study the electrophoretic properties of seminal proteins of Black Bengal buck semen. Semen ejaculates from nine Black Bengal bucks were used in the study. Semen ejaculates (n=10/buck) were collected by artificial vagina. Seminal plasma and sperm were separated by centrifugation. Seminal plasma proteins were precipitated by ice cold ethanol method and sperm proteins were extracted by Triton X detergent extraction method. Discontinuous sodium dodecyl sulphate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis was performed to assess the molecular weight of seminal proteins. A total of 10 protein bands in the molecular weight ranging from 17 to 180 kDa were found in the SDS-PAGE of seminal plasma proteins while nine bands of 17 kDa to 134 kDa were observed in sperm proteins. Seminal plasma proteins of molecular weight 75, 62-49, 20, 17 kDa and sperm proteins of 75, 20, 17 kDa were present in all the 9 bucks (100%). In conclusion variation among the bucks were noticed for presence of seminal plasma and sperm proteins and role(s) of seminal proteins on fertility needs to be studied so that they could be used as a marker for selection of breeding bucks.