SPERM DNA INTEGRITY IN BUFFALO, BULL AND STALLION

Abstract

The interest in sperm DNA integrity evaluation and its relationship to subfertility and infertility loaded to development of several sperm DNA assays. The aim of this study was to compare several sperm DNA assays in buffaloes, bulls and stallions, and to identify the relationships between those DNA assays and traditional sperm features. In Italian Mediterranean Buffalo (IMB) bulls traditional sperm features (motility, viability, acrosome integrity and morphology), sperm DNA integrity (neutral Comet assay, Sperm Bos Halomax-SBH, and Sperm Chromatin Structure Assay-SCSA), fertility in vivo and their relationships, were evaluated. The neutral Comet assay was correlated to sperm motility, viability, coiled tails and presence of epithelial cells. The SCSA measures were correlated to sperm viability, bent midpieces and distal droplets. SBH was correlated to Non-Viable Acrosome Damaged-NVAD (r= 0.60; P0.05). Pregnancy rate at 30 d, 45 d and calving rate were 57%, 55% and 45%, respectively. Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) Curve evidenced significant values for sperm motility, distal droplets, Non-Viable Acrosome Damaged, Standard Deviation-αt (SD-αt) and neutral comet measures of Olive Tail moment and tail moment, %DNA in head (and tail) and tail area (P0.05). This study identified a decrease in sperm DNA quality using both the neutral Comet assay and the SCSA, which was not identified using traditional measures of sperm quality