Animal enriched serum contains vitamin E and omega-3 fatty acids; a new suggestion to improve frozen-thawed human sperm quality

Background: Cryo-injuries in human sperm cryopreservation encouraged researcher to design a suitable protocol for sperm freezing. Supplementation of freezing media with an enriched serum obtained from animal fed a diet supplemented with fish oil (FO)and vitamin E (VITE) could be a suitable strategy to preserve the quality of sperm after cryopreservation.Methods: To produce enriched serum, 16 rams (n=4) were fed diets as follows: Control (CTR), vitamin E (VITE; 200 IU/ram/day), fish oil (FO; 40 g/ram/day) and fish oil + vitamin E (FO+VITE). In the second phase, semen samples were collected from 25 normospermic men and then were divided into six equal experimental groups for cryopreservation in freezing media (SpermFreezTM, Fertipro) containing enriched 2.5% ram serum as mentioned above. To evaluate the effects of enriched serum on the quality of frozen-thawed sperm, several parameters such as motion characteristics plasma membrane integrity (HOST), morphology (Papanicolaou), Mitochondrial membrane potential (JC1) and total ROS (Chemiluminescence assay) were recorded. Data were analyzed using SPSS.Result: The highest significant (p0.05) affected by the serum supplementation. Mitochondrial membrane potential parameters in this study confirmed our results related to integrity and morphology.Conclusion: It seems that enriched serum contained FO+VITE can improve human sperm quality after freezing-thawing. More investigations for roles of omega-3 fatty acids and antioxidants need to be considered for protection of sperm against cryo-injuries in freezing media.

Keywords:

Freezing , Sperm , Enriched serum