Sperm DNA integrity in frozen-thawed semen from Italian Mediterranean Buffalo bulls and its relationship to in vivo fertility.
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abstract
The relationship among sperm attributes of DNA integrity, sperm motility, morphology, viability, acrosome integrity and in vivo fertility of frozen-thawed Italian Mediterranean Buffalo (IMB) sperm has not been reported. Straws of frozen-thawed semen samples from three bulls were examined. Sperm DNA assays (i.e., neutral Comet assay, Sperm Bos Halomax-SBH and Sperm Chromatin Structure Assay-SCSA) were not correlated to each other (P>0.05). Many neutral Comet assay measures were correlated to total sperm motility-TMOT (% head-H-DNA, r=0.74; Olive moment, r=-0.76; P<0.05) and coiled tails (r-values ranged from% H-DNA, r=-0.80 to tail length, r=-0.71; P<0.05). The COMP-t was negatively correlated to viable acrosome intact (VAI) sperm, and distal droplets (r=-0.60 and -0.61; P<0.05), whereas Mean-t and Mode-t were positively correlated to bent midpieces (r=0.63 and 0.61; P<0.05). The SBH assay was positively correlated to non-viable acrosome damaged (NVAD) sperm (r=0.60; P<0.05) and negatively correlated to viable acrosome damaged (VAD) sperm (r=-0.63; P<0.05). The overall pregnancy rate (PR-at 30 and 45d post artificial insemination-AI) and the calving rate were 57%, 55% and 45%, respectively. Among sperm features analyzed the area under the Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) Curve was significant (P<0.05) for TMOT, NVAD, Standard Deviation-t (SD-t) and neutral comet measures (Olive tail moment and tail moment, % H- DNA and tail area) in estimating pregnancy.
