China Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Medicine ›› 2020, Vol. 47 ›› Issue (4): 1121-1129.doi: 10.16431/j.cnki.1671-7236.2020.04.017

• Genetics and Breeding • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Effects of Carnitine on Total Antioxidant Capacity and Expression of Antioxidant Enzyme and Apoptosis Related Genes of Frozen-thawed Boar Sperm

LYU Yanqiu, XU Man, XU Yichao, CHENG Mimi, JIN Yi   

  1. Yanbian University, Yanji 133002, China
  • Received:2019-08-09 Online:2020-04-20 Published:2020-04-17

Abstract: This study was aimed to investigate the effects of carnitine on frozen-thawed boar sperm quality,anti-oxidation,anti-apoptosis and sperm-egg fertilization ability in vitro.The sperm was divided into a fresh sperm group and 4 frozen-thawed sperm groups.The frozen-thawed sperm groups were treated with different concentrations of carnitine (0,0.025,0.05 and 0.075 mg/mL).The quality,total antioxidant capacity,sperm-egg binding ability,mRNA expression of antioxidant enzyme related and apoptosis-related genes of sperm were investigated.The results showed that in frozen-thawed groups,carnitine treatment significantly increased sperm motility,plasma membrane integrity rate and acrosome membrane integrity rate compared with 0 mg/mL treatment (P < 0.05),meanwhile treatment with 0.05 mg/mL carnitine showed the highest improvement.The concentration of MDA in sperm was significantly increased after frozen-thaw treatment (P < 0.05),among them,a significant decrease was only measured in 0.05 mg/mL treatment group.Compared with fresh sperm group,the total antioxidant capacity of freeze-thaw group sperm decreased significantly (P < 0.05),0.05 mg/mL carnitine treatment group showed the highest total antioxidant capacity in frozen-thawed groups.Furthermore,compared with fresh sperm group,the relative expression of apoptosis-related genes Caspase-3 and Bax increased significantly (P < 0.05),the relative expression of anti-apoptotic gene Bcl-2 decreased significantly (P < 0.05),and the expression of antioxidant enzyme-related genes SOD2,CAT and GPx decreased significantly in 0 mg/mL carnitine treatment (P < 0.05).Compared with fresh sperm group,the ability of sperm-egg binding in every treatment group showed a decrease,0.05 mg/mL carnitine treatment also showed the highest improvement (P < 0.05).The results indicated that the addition of carnitine could improve the quality,anti-oxidation ability,anti-apoptosis ability and sperm-egg binding ability of frozen-thawed boar sperm.

Key words: carnitine; boar sperm; cryostorage; anti-apoptosis; antioxidant enzyme

CLC Number: