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Metabolic activity of sperm cells: correlation with sperm cell concentration, viability and motility in the rabbit

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 March 2016

Maria Sabés-Alsina ,
Núria Planell ,
Sílvia Gil ,
Oriol Tallo-Parra ,
Maria José Maya-Soriano ,
Ester Taberner ,
Miriam Piles ,
Manel Sabés  and
Manel Lopez-Bejar
Maria Sabés-Alsina*
Affiliation:
Department of Animal Health and Anatomy, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 08193 Bellaterra, Spain.
Núria Planell
Affiliation:
Department of Gastroenterology and Bioinformatics Platform, CIBERehd, Barcelona, Spain.
Sílvia Gil
Affiliation:
Centre d’Estudis en Biofísica. Faculty of Medicine, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 08193 Bellaterra, Spain.
Oriol Tallo-Parra
Affiliation:
Department of Animal Health and Anatomy, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 08193 Bellaterra, Spain.
Maria José Maya-Soriano
Affiliation:
Department of Animal Health and Anatomy, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 08193 Bellaterra, Spain.
Ester Taberner
Affiliation:
Department of Animal Health and Anatomy, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 08193 Bellaterra, Spain.
Miriam Piles
Affiliation:
Unitat de Cunicultura, Institut de Recerca i Tecnologia Agroalimentàries, Torre Marimon s/n, 08182, Caldes de Montbui, Barcelona, Spain.
Manel Sabés
Affiliation:
Centre d’Estudis en Biofísica. Faculty of Medicine, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 08193 Bellaterra, Spain.
Manel Lopez-Bejar*
Affiliation:
Department of Animal Health and Anatomy, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 08193 Bellaterra, Spain.
*
All correspondence to: Maria Sabés-Alsina or Manel Lopez-Bejar. Department of Animal Health and Anatomy, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 08193 Bellaterra, Spain. E-mail: maria.sabes@gmail.com or manel.lopez.bejar@uab.cat
All correspondence to: Maria Sabés-Alsina or Manel Lopez-Bejar. Department of Animal Health and Anatomy, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 08193 Bellaterra, Spain. E-mail: maria.sabes@gmail.com or manel.lopez.bejar@uab.cat
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Summary

The resazurin reduction test (RRT) is a useful technique to assess the metabolic rate of sperm cells. RRT depends on the ability of metabolically active cells to reduce the non-fluorescent dye resazurin to the fluorescent resorufin. The aim of this study was to develop a vital fluorometric method to evaluate metabolic activity of rabbit sperm cells. Twenty-five rabbit males were included in the study. Viability and morphology, motility and metabolic activity were evaluated using an eosin-nigrosin staining, a computer-assisted semen analysis (CASA) and the RRT, respectively. Spearman rank correlation analysis was used to determine the correlation between RRT and semen parameters. After evaluation, a concentration of 10 × 106 sperm cells/ml was selected for further experiments with RRT. No significant correlation was found between the RRT results and the motility parameters. However, after RRT a significant positive correlation between relative fluorescence units and the percentage of alive spermatozoa (r = 0.62; P = 0.001) and a negative one with the percentage of sperm cells with acrosomic abnormalities (r = −0.45; P < 0.05) were detected.

The vital assessment of metabolic rate of sperm cells by RRT could provide more information about semen quality than other routine semen analysis, correlating with sperm viability and acrosome status information.

Keywords

AcrosomeMetabolic activityRabbitResazurin reduction testSperm cell
Type
Research Article
Information
Zygote , Volume 24 , Issue 5 , October 2016 , pp. 707 - 713
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

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