Spermatozoa with high mitochondrial membrane potential and low tyrosine phosphorylation preferentially bind to oviduct explants in the water buffalo ( Bubalus bubalis )

Spermatozoal transcripts associated with oxidative stress and mitochondrial membrane potential differ between high‐ and low‐fertile crossbred bulls

“…Sperm mitochondrial membrane potential (Figure 2) was assessed using a florescence probe 5, 5_, 6, 6_-tetrachloro-1, 1_, 3, 3_ -tetraethylbenzimidazolyl-carbocyanine iodide (JC-1; Sigma-Aldrich, St. Louis, Missouri, USA) as described in Saraf et al (2017). Briefly , JC-1 stain (5 μg/mL) was added to the washed spermatozoa and incubated for 15 min.…”

Comparative high‐throughput analysis of sperm membrane proteins from crossbred bulls with contrasting fertility

“…Oxidative phosphorylation is a relatively complex process which functions in the maintenance of mitochondrial membrane potentials inside the inner mitochondrial membrane (Moscatelli et al, 2019). Active state of mitochondria in the spermatozoa is essential as sperm with higher MMP were preferred for establishing sperm reservoir in the oviduct and future hyper-activated motility (Saraf et al, 2017). Dysfunction of energy producing pathways in the spermatozoa could be a potential aetiology behind asthenozoospermia condition in low fertile men (Nowicka-Bauer et al, 2018).…”

Spermatozoa produced during winter are superior in terms of phenotypic characteristics and oviduct explants binding ability in the water buffalo (Bubalus bubalis)

“…In the current study, we observed that the sperm‐oviduct binding index (BI) was significantly higher when spermatozoa cryopreserved during winter season was used as compared to summer season. Off late, it is well recognized that female operates a ‘cryptic female choice’ at oviduct level (Birkhead, 1998; Holt & Fazeli, 2015) and certain phenotypic characteristics like intact morphology (Thomas et al., 1994), an uncapacitated status (Fazeli et al., 1999; Lefebvre & Suarez, 1996), intact acrosome (Gualtieri & Talevi, 2000) and low level of tyrosine phosphorylation (Saraf, Kumaresan, Chhillar, et al, 2017) were preferred for establishing sperm‐oviduct reservoir. Further, it is also reported that the ability of spermatozoa to react with oviduct fluid and to bind with oviduct differs among bulls with different fertility (De Pauw et al., 2002; Kumaresan, Johannisson, Bergqvist, 2017; Kumaresan et al., 2012; Saraf et al., 2019).…”

“…In this regard, several studies identified the most relevant sperm phenotypic characteristics including sperm functional membrane integrity, acrosome reaction status, DNA fragmentation index and lipid peroxidation for male fertility assessment (Birck et al., 2010; Januskauskas et al., 2003; Kumaresan, Johannisson, Al‐Essawe, et al., 2017; Kumaresan, Johannisson, Bergqvist, 2017). In buffaloes, it has been reported that sperm functional analysis (Singh et al., 2016) and sperm–oviduct binding index (Saraf, Kumaresan, Chhillar, et al, 2017; Saraf et al., 2019) were related to bull fertility. Thus, assessment of phenotypic attributes of spermatozoa obtained during summer and winter season is expected to give an idea about the sperm quality differences as influenced by the season in buffaloes.…”