Reproduction Abstracts

The seminal vesiculitis leads to contamination of the semen with inflammatory cells, causing agglutination, precipitation, decreased sperm motility and increased reactive oxygen species (ROS). This deleterious effect is most pronounced during the cryopreservation process. Therefore, the aim of this study was to evaluate the quality of frozen semen from stallions with seminal vesiculitis after local treatment. Five stallions with seminal vesiculitis were used and local treatment was performed by endoscopy for 10 consecutive days. This consisted of flushing with Ringer Lactate solution followed by infusion of the antibiotic of choice selected after antibiogram of bacterial culture of seminal vesicles flush. The kinetic parameters, plasma membrane integrity, lipid peroxidation index and the level of ROS in the frozen semen before (M0), after 1 week (M1) and after 1 month (M2) therapy were evaluated. The data were analyzed by (two-way ANOVA) followed by Tukey’s test (P<0.05). The values (mean±S.E.M.) of seminal parameters on M0, M1 and M2 were the following, respectively: sperm kinetics (total motility: 20.8±2.12a; 44.8±2.97b; 24.3±3.02a; progressive motility: 7.5±1.05a; 19.6±2.55b; 9.9±1.73a; rapid sperm: 10.7±1.51a; 27.0±1.80b; 14.3±3.01a), plasma membrane integrity (26.6±2.42a; 42.2±2.09b; 28.3±2.36a), lipid peroxidation index (1.2±0.12a; 0.75±0.09b; 0.98±0.11a) and level of ROS (5.83±2.06a; 1.72±0.57b; 1.87±0.81ab). The results demonstrate that local treatment after a week leads to an improvement on frozen sperm quality, however this is not maintained after 1 month of therapy, since the seminal parameters at this time are similar to the pre-treatment, which can be justified by the recurrence of disease.

Acknowledgments: FAPESP (2011/23139-9).