In camelids, the development of assisted reproductive technologies is impaired by the viscous nature of the semen. The protease papain has shown promise in reducing viscosity, although its effect on sperm integrity is unknown. The present study determined the optimal papain concentration and exposure time to reduce seminal plasma viscosity and investigated the effect of papain and its inhibitor...

Copyright resides with the authors in terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 South African Licence. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/za Condition of use: The user may copy, distribute, transmit and adapt the work, but must recognize the authors and the South African Journal of Animal Science. _________________________________________________________________________________...

BACKGROUND Cryopreservation of semen requires optimized conditions to minimize the harmful effects of various stresses. The main approach for protection of sperm against stress is based on the use of antioxidants and cryoprotectants, which are described as defensive methods. Recently, the application of controlled mild stressors has been de- scribed for activation of a temporary response in ooc...

The present study was undertaken to know the seasonal infl uence on various seminal attributes in Murrah buffalo bulls. Data on 156 ejaculates of eight Murrah buffalo bulls (nearly 30 to 58 months) maintained under identical nutrition and management conditions were selected randomly from Artifi cial Breeding Complex, NDRI, Karnal, India, from May, 2006 to April, 2007. The information on 156 eja...

Background: Artificial insemination (AI) has been used for increasing genetic potential of animals in production while application of AI has been restricted in buffalo due to low freezing ability and fertility of frozen-thawed buffalo spermatozoa. So improvement in buffalo sperm cryopreservation may enhance the breeding programs of this valuable farm animal. Semen processing is one of the major...

The acrosome is an organelle that is central to sperm physiology and a defective acrosome biogenesis leads to globozoospermia, a severe male infertility. The identification of the actors involved in acrosome biogenesis is therefore particularly important to decipher the molecular pathogeny of globozoospermia. We recently showed that a defect in the DPY19L2 gene is present in more than 70% of gl...

Cryopreservation of human spermatozoa free from cryoprotectant can avoid toxicity caused by highly concentrated cryoprotectant and a series of specific carriers have been previously explored, except for PDMS chip. Our study is aimed at exploring a novel device for ultra-rapid cryopreservation of small numbers of spermatozoa without cryoprotectant based on polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) chips. Sper...

The present study was designed to 1) assess preliminary non-invasive, readily measurable reproductive attributes of Cholistani breeding bulls (n=06) such as age, body weight (BW) and orchidometric parameters viz. scrotal circumference (SC), scrotal skin fold thickness (SSFT), average testicular length (Avg L), average testicular width (Avg W), and paired testicular volume (PTV); 2) assess the b...

The present study was conducted to observe the effect of increased osmolality of basic tris extender supplemented with trehalose and sucrose on post-thawing quality (motility, progressive motility, viability, the rate of acrosome abnormality, total abnormality and membrane integrity) of Markhoz goat spermatozoa. Fresh semen samples were evaluated for motility and sperm concentration. Only semen...