Relationship between Sperm Response to Glycosaminoglycans in vitro and Non‐return Rates of Swedish Dairy AI Bulls

Abstract

Contents In this study, the relations between fertility (56‐day non‐return rates, 56‐day NRR) after artificial insemination (AI) and bull sperm characteristics post‐thaw, after swim‐up and after co‐incubation with heparin (Hep) and hyaluronan (HA), respectively, were determined, attempting to determine if such a procedure could be of value to evaluate the potential fertilizing ability of frozen‐thawed AI bull spermatozoa. Spermatozoa from 20 semen batches derived from 20 Swedish Red and White AI bulls ranging widely in their field fertility after AI (55–79% 56‐day NRRs) were evaluated with regards to post‐thaw motility, membrane integrity, and migration through a simple swim‐up procedure. Sperm viability and capacitation status were evaluated by two different vital staining procedures and chlortetracycline hydrochloride staining. Sperm motility and membrane integrity post‐thaw (e.g. indicators of sperm viability) were significantly correlated (r = 0.53, p < 0.05 and r = 0.59, p < 0.01, respectively) with fertility. Heparin (5 µg/ml) significantly (p lt; 0.001) increased the frequencies of capacitation and acrosome‐reaction (AR) among swim‐up separated spermatozoa, whereas HA at a concentration of 50 ng/ml did not have any significant capacitating effect. The incidences of capacitated or AR‐spermatozoa following Hep‐treatment were not correlated with fertility. On the other hand, the percentage of viable spermatozoa was significantly (p < 0.001) lower in Hep‐treated samples than in control and HA‐treated samples and was significantly (r = 0.49, p < 0.05) correlated with fertility after AI (56‐day NRR). The results indicate that the percentage of viable spermatozoa after swim‐up separation and heparin‐exposure from a selected population of AI bulls were significantly and positively related to the AI fertility of the donors and thus could be used as a parameter to determine the fertilizing ability of frozen—thawed AI bull spermatozoa.

In vitro induction of the acrosome reaction in spermatozoa from endangered Spanish bulls: Effect of breed, culture media and incubation time

“…In fact, AR status has been previously used as predictor of both freezability (Molnarova et al, 2006) and in vivo fertility (Birck et al, 2010;Collin et al, 2000;Giritharan et al, 2005) in cattle. However, it has been widely demonstrated that in vitro AR rates depend on both the incubation time (Dode et al, 2002;Fukui et al, 1990;Gliedt et al, 1996;Pavlok et al, 2001) and the culture medium (Januskauskas et al, 2000;Sharma et al, 1999;Vadnais et al, 2005). Our results are consistent with these previous observations, showing a clear interaction between culture medium and incubation time.…”

“…In general, the incidence of AR obtained in vitro in the current study is in consonance with those obtained by previous authors (Birck et al, 2010;Costa et al, 2010;Januskauskas et al, 2000;Parrish et al, 1988;Somfai et al, 2002), indicating that doses of semen stored at Andalusian Genetic Bank responded satisfactorily to in vitro AR test. We also observed that the incidence of spontaneous AR at 0 h was on average 6%.…”

In vitrocapacitation of bull spermatozoa by oviductal fluid and its components

“…Some studies suggest that heparin uses the same pathway as ODF to elicit capacitation, viewed as changes on the sperm surface (Mahmoud and Parrish, 1996). We did not find any significant increase in the proportion of capacitated spermatozoa when treated with heparin (20 µg/ml) for 4 h. This is a discrepancy compared with many other studies (Januskaukas et al, 2000;Collin et al, 2002;Chamberland et al, 2001). We did not find any significant increase in the proportion of capacitated spermatozoa when treated with heparin (20 µg/ml) for 4 h. This is a discrepancy compared with many other studies (Januskaukas et al, 2000;Collin et al, 2002;Chamberland et al, 2001).…”

Seminal plasma and serum fertility biomarkers in dromedary camels (Camelus dromedarius)

“…Currently, routine evaluation of sperm concentration and motility is frequently used to assess semen quality but provides limited information about the fertility indexes of sires [21][22][23][24][25][26]. Other criteria such as computerized analysis of motility and acrosome integrity also help to estimate semen quality and have been related to nonreturn rates of bulls, but correlations are not high or even consistent [27][28][29][30][31]. There is obvious evidence that motility is important for fertilization [32], but, within groups of bulls that have met a certain threshold for sperm motility, this parameter has only a limited contribution to detect differences in fertility scores [33].…”