Effects of different concentrations of sucrose or trehalose on the post-thawing quality of cattle bull semen

Abstract

Abstract Objective To examine the effect of different concentrations of trehalose or sucrose (50 or 100 or 200 mM) on post-thawed quality of bull semen, cryo-preserved in Tris-citric acid-egg yolk-fructose (TCYF). Methods Semen samples were diluted in TCYF extender, TCYF + trehalose (50, 100 and 150 mM/L) or TCYF + sucrose (50, 100 and 150 mM/L) to ensure 60 million motile spermatozoa mL-1, cooled slowly up to 5 °C and equilibrated for 4 h. Semen was packed into 0.25 mL polyvinyl French straws. The straws were placed horizontally on a rack and frozen in a vapor 4 cm above liquid nitrogen (LN2) for 10 minutes then dipped in liquid LN2. Frozen straws were thawed at 37 °C for 1 min. The parameters studied were sperm motility, sperm viability, sperm abnormality, sperm membrane integrity (HOST), percent of normal intact acrosome and DNA fragmentation. Results The output data demonstrated that addition of 50–100 mM of trehalose or sucrose/L TCYF after chilling at 5 °C had significantly ( P P Conclusion It is finally concluded that the addition of 50–100 mM trehalose or sucrose/L to TCYF have a beneficial effect in chilling diluted bull semen, while the use of 50 mM trehalose or 50–100 mM sucrose had their benefits on freezing-thawing of extended semen.