Influence of linoleic acid supplementation on the quality of frozen-thawed ram semen

Document Type : Original Article

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Department of Theriogenology, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Cairo University; Giza, Egypt

Abstract

The present study was conducted to evaluate the effect of linoleic acid (LA) supplementation in the freezing diluent on the quality of frozen-thawed ram semen. Semen was collected from five mature fat tailed rams once weekly using the conventional A.V. of rams. Semen samples were processed as a pool, divided into 5 aliquots, each aliquot was diluted with egg yolk-Tris-glycerol diluent and three concentrations (50, 100 and 150 μM) of LA were used. Diluted semen was then cooled, equilibrated and subjected to cryopreservation. Evaluation of post-thaw semen quality included progressive sperm motility, alive and abnormal sperm percentages, functional membrane integrity (HOST) and acrosome integrity. Results showed that the percentages of alive sperm (51.4 vs 40.2%; P< 0.05) and HOST (53.2 vs 39.6%; P< 0.05) were significantly increased only at concentration of 50 μM of LA compared to control, respectively. Also, LA (50 μM) decreased significantly (P<0.05) the percentage of abnormal sperm compared to control with ethanol (20.6 vs 29%). Regarding the intact acrosome percentage, only the 150 μM LA decreased significantly (P<0.05) the intact acrosome (75 vs 80.4%) compared to control. The effects of the other concentrations on the other post-thaw semen quality parameters were non significant. It could be concluded that, addition of LA (50 μM) to Tris based diluent improved the post-thaw quality of ram semen in terms of sperm membrane integrity and sperm morphology.

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