Royal jelly supplemented soybean lecithin-based extenders improve post-thaw quality and incubation resilience of goat spermatozoa

Abstract

The aim of the present study was to evaluate different concentrations of royal jelly (RJ) supplemented extenders for post-thaw quality and incubation resilience of goat spermatozoa. Semen samples were collected from five goats. Pooled semen were diluted with soybean lecithin-based extender without RJ (control) or supplemented with different concentrations (0.25, 0.5 and 0.75%) of RJ (RJ0.25, RJ0.5, RJ0.75 respectively), at a final concentration of 150 x 106 spermatozoon/mL. Semen samples were assessed for sperm motility, plasma membrane integrity using hypoosmotic swelling test (HOST) damaged acrosome using FITC-Pisum sativum agglutinin (PSA-FITC) and DNA integrity using terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase-mediated dUTP nick-end labeling (TUNEL). The addition of RJ (0.5%, 0.75%) led to higher percentages of subjective motilities (55.33 +/- 2.29%, 57.67 +/- 2.58%) compared to control and RJ0.25 groups (49.00 +/- 2,80%, 51.67 +/- 3.09%) (P < 0.05) following the freezethawing process. RJ0.5 and RJ0.75 groups had higher plasma membrane functional integrities (66.40 +/- 1.34%, 68.20 +/- 2.05%) and lower defected acrosome rates (24.60 +/- 3.36%, 23.80 +/- 2.27%) compared to the other groups (P < 0.05). DNA damaged spermatozoa in all groups were not significant (P > 0.05). In the end of incubation, motility and HOST rates of RJ0.5 (14.00 +/- 3.87%, 31.20 +/- 3.70%) and RJ0.75 (15.00 +/- 3.27%, 29.20 +/- 2.59%) groups were higher than control (8.00 +/- 2.54%, 18.20 +/- 3.11%) and RJ0.25 (9.00 +/- 2.07%, 20.60 +/- 2.88%) groups (P < 0.05). Also defected acrosome and DNA fragmation rates of RJ0.5 (32.20 +/- 1.30%, 5.4 +/- 0.55%) and RJ0.75 (29.20 +/- 1.30%, 5.80 +/- 0.45%) groups were significantly lower than control (38.80 +/- 0.84%, 7.40 +/- 1.34%) and RJ0.25 (39.80 +/- 2.05%, 7.00 +/- 1.58) groups. This study shows that RJ supplemented extenders have beneficial effect on goat sperm parameters at 0 h and 6 h of incubation.