Abstract
On-stud assessment of stallion sperm quality can be problematic. A new instrument, the Nucleocounter SP-100, was validated for measuring stallion sperm concentration and viability. It was subsequently used to evaluate sperm viability in Kenney's extender and INRA96. There was a strong correlation between sperm concentrations measured by the Nucleocounter SP-100 and by the Bürker counting chamber (r = 0.84; P < .001). Similarly, there was a good correlation between sperm viability results from the Nucleocounter SP-100 and flow cytometric results (r = 0.73; P < .001). Sperm viability at 24 hours was significantly better for samples extended in INRA96 than in Kenney's extender (P < .001). Furthermore, sperm kinematics were better for stored samples in INRA96 than in Kenney's extender. Single Layer Centrifugation selected spermatozoa that maintained their viability better during storage for 24 hours than the uncentrifuged samples. In conclusion, the type of semen extender used and Single Layer Centrifugation were found to influence both the kinematics and viability of stallion spermatozoa. The Nucelocounter-SP100 was considered to be a useful instrument for rapidly measuring stallion sperm concentration and viability.
Highlights
Many attempts have been made to improve the quality of stallion semen for use in artificial insemination (AI), for example, by changing the composition of semen extenders and by using sophisticated methods of analysis to choose which ejaculates to use, there is still considerable variation in quality among semen doses
The results of the validation show that the Nucleocounter SP100 gave similar results to sperm concentrations obtained from the Burker counting chamber, and that the two sets of results were highly correlated
The values obtained from FC and Nucleocounter SP-100 were not always similar, there was a significant correlation between the two sets of results
Summary
Many attempts have been made to improve the quality of stallion semen for use in artificial insemination (AI), for example, by changing the composition of semen extenders and by using sophisticated methods of analysis to choose which ejaculates to use, there is still considerable variation in quality among semen doses. Determining the quality of a stallion ejaculate for artificial insemination is still considered to be problematical [5]. An alternative approach would be to select the most robust spermatozoa from the ejaculate, for example, by Single Layer Centrifugation (SLC) [6,7,8]. In this method, spermatozoa are centrifuged through
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