Influence of Glutathione Addition to the Extender on the Cooled Camel Semen Quality

Abstract

Semen was collected, evaluated and extended with two extenders (Lactose-yolk-citrate: LYC and Tris-yolk-fructose: TYF .The final extension rate was 1ml semen:4ml extender. The extended semen was divided into cervical 4 tubes added with Glutathion (GSH) at concentrations of 0.0, 0.2, 0.4 and 0.8 mM/100ml. The extended semen was kept at 5 ºC for5 days. After each storage time (0, 1, 2,3, 4 and 5 days), the percentages of sperm motility, dead spermatozoa, abnormal spermatozoa, and acrosome damage of spermatozoa were recorded. Activities of aspartate-aminotransferase (AST) and alanine-aminotrans ferase (ALT) enzymes were recorded. The penetrating ability of camel spermatozoa added with 0.4 mM into she-camel cervical mucus, during incubation at 37ºC for up to 4 hours was also recorded. The results showed that, the extended cooled camel semen with TYF extender was insignificantly higher the percentage of motile spermatozoa, while insignificantly lower the percentages of dead spermatozoa, abnormal spermatozoa and acrosome damage and leakage of AST and ALT enzymes into the extra cellular medium than LYC extender, during storage at 5ºC for 5 days with the different concentrations of glutathione (GSH) or free-GSH medium. The advancement of storage time at 5ºC for up to 5days was significantly (P<0.05) decreased the percentage of sperm motility , while increased significantly ((P<0.05) the percentages of dead spermatozoa, abnormal spermatozoa, acrosome damage and enzymatic activities(AST and ALT) with different extenders or GSH concentrations. The penetrating ability of the extended camel spermatozoa with TYF or LYC extender added with 0.4 mM/100 ml GSH into she-camel cervical mucus was significantly (P<0.05) better than free-GSH medium (control), during incubation at 37 ºC for up to 4 hours. However, the advancement of incubation time at