The ageing phenomenon of turbot spermatozoa: effects on morphology, motility and concentration, intracellular ATP content, fertilization, and storage capacities

Abstract

The deleterious effect of the ageing phenomenon of turbot spermatozoa was investigated in relation to the sampling date. Spermatozoa with a low or highly condensed chromatin and a middle piece containing numerous or a few vesicles were observed simultaneously 80 and 47 days before the beginning of the spawning period of the females. The middle piece of spermatozoa contained few vesicles, 39 days after the end of the reproductive period. At the same date, some spermatozoa appeared in which the plasma membrane was broken. Sperm motility, assessed just after collection in terms of arbitrary motility scores from 0 to 5, was significantly increased both at 10 and 60 s post-activation, for samples collected 18 days after, 25 days before and 9 days after the beginning of the spawning period of the females, respectively compared to samples collected 6 days before, 55 days after and 88 days after the end of this period. A lower short-term storage capacity was recorded at 10 and 60 s post-activation for sperm samples collected 6 days before and 88 days after the end of the reproductive period, respectively compared to 18 days and 9 days after the beginning of the spawning period. At 60 s post-activation, a higher motility of thawed spermatozoa was observed for samples collected 5 days before the beginning of the spawning period (motility recovery index: 86·4 19·4%) compared to 71 days after the end of this period (55·0 12·0%). The fertilizing capacity of sperm samples collected 61 days after the end of the spawning season (66·1 14·6%) was significantly lower than that recorded for samples collected 34 days after the beginning of the spawning period (75·2 9·6%). On the contrary, there was no significant decrease in endogenous ATP content (31 days after the beginning of the spawning period, 14·53 0·84; 48 days after the end of this period, 10·75 5·26 nmol 10 8 spermatozoa). Furthermore, sperm concentration significantly increased between the same dates (respectively 3·3 0·8-9·4 4·8 10 9 spermatozoa ml 1 ). 1998 The Fisheries Society of the British Isles

Effects of re-stripping on the seminal characteristics of pacu ( Piaractus mesopotamicus ) during the breeding season

“…The differences in the End group may be related to the ''aging'' of sperm. Reductions in sperm motility and in the duration of sperm motility from the beginning to the end of the breeding season have been reported in other species (Suquet et al, 1998). In our study, we found an association between DNA damage, sperm morphological abnormalities and changes in seminal plasma proteins.…”

Sperm quality in male Barbus barbus L. fed different diets during the spawning season

“…Nevertheless, the results revealed similar changes in sperm from Groups B and C during the spawning season, but these were different from Group A. The observed decrease of sperm parameters mainly osmolality of the seminal plasma and sperm motility and velocity in Group B and C late in the spawning season suggest the possible aging of sperm towards the end of the spawning season, which has been documented for several fish species (Suquet et al 1998;Dreanno et al 1999).…”

“…Spermatozoa concentration has been shown to increase during the spawning season for Atlantic halibut (Methven and Crim 1991), Atlantic cod (Rakitin et al 1999), turbot (Suquet et al 1998), and Atlantic salmon (Piironen 1985), but to decrease during the spawning season for tench (Zuromska 1981), rainbow trout (Buyukhatipoglu and Holtz 1984;Munikittrick and Moccia 1987), sea bass and sea bream (Kara and Labed 1994). In the present study, spermatozoa concentration decreased in all feeding groups from March to April, but increased in Groups B and C in May.…”

Suitable methods for cryopreservation of semen from Atlantic halibut, Hippoglossus hippoglossus L.

“…The following four diluents were tested: (1) modified Hanks' balanced salt solution (HBSS) (Sigma Aldrich Co., H 8264): in g l -1 , NaCl 8; KCl 0.4; CaCl 2 Á 2H 2 O 0.185; NaHCO 3 0.35; MgSO 4 0.09767; KH 2 PO 4 0.06; Na 2 HPO 4 0.04788; D-glucose 1; pH 7.2; osmolality 281 mOsm/kg; (2) modified turbot extender (MTE) (Suquet et al 1998), modified by Vermeirssen et al (2004): in mM, NaCl 70; KCl 1.5; CaCl 2 2.7; NaHCO 3 25; MgCl 6.1; glucose 200; BSA 10 mg ml -1 ; pH 8.1; filtered with a 0.22 lm filter; osmolality 400 mOsm/kg; (3) herring ringer (HR) (Pillai et al 1994): in mM, NaCl 206; KCl 7.2; CaCl 2 2.1; MgCl 2 Á 6H 2 O 3.3; pH adjusted to 7.8 using 1 mM NaHCO 3 ; osmolality 405 mOsm/kg; and (4) sucrose 0.6 M. HBSS, MTE, and HR were chosen based on their suitability for chilled incubation of Atlantic halibut semen (Babiak et al 2006b), and sucrose 0.6 M was chosen because of its common use for cryopreserving fish sperm (Glogowski et al 2000). Dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO), dimethyl acetamide (DMA), methanol, propylene glycol (PG), and glycerol, were tested as cryoprotectants (Chao and Liao 2001).…”