A comparative study with Murrah buffalo and indigenous Gir spermatozoa to Hypo-Osmotic Swelling Test.
ABSTRACT: Hypo-Osmotic Swelling Test (HOST) is a simple but authentic test to measure the integrityof sperm membrane. The present study was undertaken to evaluate the HOST value in Murrah buffaloand indigenous Gir bull in 150 mosm/l tri-sodium citrate and D-fructose HOST solution. Murrahbuffalo was having more HOST (49±0.39 %) reacted spermatozoa than indigenous Gir (42±0.57 %)bulls suggesting lesser membrane damage during cryo-preservation and higher fertility rate in Murrahbuffalo than Gir cattle. Key words: HOST, PTM, Gir, Murrah, Spermatozoa. _______________________________________________________________________Frozen Semen Bull Station (Paschim Banga Go-Sampad Bikash Sanstha),Composite State AnimalHusbandry Farm, Salbini, Paschim Medinipur-721147, West Bengal, India. 1 Chief Executive Officer, Paschim Banga Go-Sampad Bikash Sanstha, Kolkata -98, West Bengal, India.*Corresponding author. INTRODUCTION Artificial Insemination has played asignificant role in dairy industry throughproduction and preservation of semen from elitebulls. However, the prediction of potentialfertility bull is always obtained by evaluation ofdifferent parameters of semen. The structuralintegrity of spermatozoa is an importantparameter for semen evaluation (Neild et al.1999). Post-thaw viability and fertility ofcryopreserved sperm are often reduced due toaccumulated cellular damage during the cryo-preservation phases (Muino et al. 2008).Decrease in temperature, cold shock, andintracellular ice formation can affect spermplasma membrane, acrosomal and mitochondrialmembrane integrity (Thomas et al. 1998, Defoinet al. 2008) and cause the loss of intracellularcomponents (Graham and Moce 2005), whichcan initiate cell death. Sperm membrane integritycan be evaluated by several methods like, lightor fluorescent microscopy combined with vitalstains (Brito et al. 2003), and flow cytometry(Januskauskas et al. 2003). Jeyendran et al.(1984) developed a hypo osmotic swelling test(HOST) to evaluate sperm membrane functionof human spermatozoa. HOST is used to evaluatethe sperm membrane integrity in bovines (Rotaet al. 2000), equine (Neild et al. 2000), canine(Rodriguez-Gil et al. 1994) and porcine (Perez-Llano et al. 2001). The present study wasenvisaged to compare between percent HOSTpositive sperm of Murrah buffalo and Gir bullsemen after cryo-preservation and to find out thebreed average values of HOST, a directly fertilityrelated test to evaluate cryo-preserved semen.