Post-thawing Sperm Quality in Chilean Purebred Stallions: Effect of Age and Seasonality

Abstract

In this work, we investigated the influence of age and seasonality on sperm motility and DNA fragmentation in post-thawing semen from Chilean Purebred Stallions (CPS), a horse breed presenting the oldest genealogy record in South America with an interesting reproductive industry. Despite that semen from aged CPS is frozen all year round, there is a lack of studies characterizing the breed semen freezability in accordance with age and seasonality. Twenty fertile CPS were grouped into the young group, the middle group, and the aged group. Ten ejaculates from each stallion were obtained by using an artificial vagina during summer (December) and winter (July) and directly frozen. Subsequently, the frozen semen was thawed and analyzed by a computer-assisted semen analysis and flow cytometer assessing progressive motility, mean velocity, and DNA fragmentation spermatozoa. Kruskal-Wallis test and Pearson's correlation were used to determine statistical differences among groups and correlation among variables (P ≤ .05). Both spermatozoa motility traits decreased progressively in accordance with age and seasonality, showing the lowest values in the aged group during winter and the highest values in the young group during summer. Deoxyribonucleic acid fragmentation increased significantly in accordance with age and seasonality being highest in the aged group during winter and lowest in the young group during summer. Post-thawing sperm quality showed a negative correlation with the age of the stallions and a positive correlation with the normal sperm morphology before freezing. These results allow the conclusion that age and seasonality are important factors that need to be considered during the selection of CPS for reproductive programs.

Keywords: Age; Chilean Purebred Stallion; Frozen; Seasonality.