The Massive Impact of Ram’s Sperm Starvation on the Fertilization and Blastocyst Rates in Terms of Sperm Quality and Capacitation

Abstract

During sperm incubation in vitro, the sperm capacitation medium must play a key role in establishing conditions that perfect the required physiological requirements for sperm metabolic activities to obtain a high in vitro fertilization rate ensured by the ideal development of the embryos. Therefore, sperm collected from the caudal epididymis of rams should acquire progressive motility and fertilization. This process occurs through physiological and biochemical changes known as capacitation, a prerequisite for fertilization. In this work, we have studied a new way to incubate sperm, applied for the first time in ram, using four different treatments in terms of energy substrates and different incubation methods. In this sperm energy restriction and recovery treatment, sperm was let starving for 50 min until it lost its capacity for motility, and then was provided with glucose and incubated for 60 min. In the other three treatments, the sperm was not exposed to starvation and was incubated by the standard methods of maturation and capacitation by evaluating different energy substrates. According to the obtained results, the sperm was hyperactive and showed a significant increase in the ability to fertilize oocytes in the treatment that involved starvation and then re-activation of the sperm by adding glucose, compared to other treatments. In conclusion, the effects of this treatment persisted until after fertilization, which led to the production of a high percentage of blastocysts.

Keywords

• Sheep
• Sperm Starvation
• Blastocyst
• IVF Capacitation
• Rescue Protocol

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