Lipid Classes of Bovine Spermatozoa

The lipids of buffalo spermatozoa and seminal plasma

“…Cholesterol was mainly found as the free sterol with a small amount as sterol esters. Miller et al (1965) reported 0-2% of the total lipids of bovine semen as cholesterol esters, a value slightly less than that found for buffalo and bull semen in this study. The occurrence of diglycerides in the neutral lipids of bull, boar and stallion has been reported (Miller et al, 1965;Komarek et al, 1964Komarek et al, , 1965a but there was no resolution into 1,2-and 1,3-diglycerides.…”

“…In buffalo and bull, we found that the diglycerides were mainly 1,3-diglycerides. Miller et al (1965) were unable to demon¬ strate free fatty acids in bovine semen but we found a small percentage of free fatty acids in buffalo and bull semen. Thus, the neutral lipid composition of the spermatozoa and seminal plasma of the two species studied were qualitatively similar but differed quantitatively, and there were distinct differences compared with findings in other species, particularly in the major component.…”

“…No report is available on the total glycolipid content in semen for any mammal other than buffalo and bull (Table 1). Phospholipids constituted a higher proportion of the total lipids in bull (59-1 %) than in buffalo (47-8 %) spermatozoa and have been reported to be the major component of total lipids of spermatozoa and seminal plasma of bull (Komarek et al, 1964;Miller, Mayer & Merilan, 1965;Pursel & Graham, 1967), boar (Johnson et al, 1969;Komarek et al, 1965a), goat (Jain & Anand, 1975b), stallion (Komarek et al, 1965b) and man .…”

“…Triglycérides were the major component of buffalo and bull semen; 11-63% for buffalo and 9-6% for bull spermatozoa and 9-81% and 12-36% respectively in seminal plasma. Analysis of the seminal neutral lipids of bull (Miller et al, 1965;Komarek et al, 1964), boar (Komarek et al, 1965a) and stallion (Komarek et al, 1965b) showed that cholesterol was the major component, followed by triglycérides. The cholesterol content in the three species ranged between 10 and 28 % while we found 3-to 4-fold lower values for buffalo and bull semen.…”

Fatty acids and fatty aldehydes of buffalo seminal plasma and sperm lipid

“…Although arachidonic acid was the major unsaturated acid of buffalo semen triglycérides, eicosapentaenoic acid (20:5 6) was reported to be so for man (Ahluwalia & Holman, 1969). The presence of diglycerides but not free fatty acids has been reported in bull, ram, boar and stallion semen (Miller, Mayer & Merilan, 1965;Komarek, Pickett, Lanz & Jensen, 1964;Komarek, Pickett, Gibson & Lanz, 1965;Komarek, Pickett, Gibson & Jensen, 1965;Neill & Masters, 1972 (Scott & Dawson, 1968). Other pathways for the formation of digly¬ cerides could be through the normal pathways involving phosphatidic acid intermediates (Kennedy, 1957) or through the acylation of monoglycerides (Clark & Hubscher, 1961).…”