Morus nigra Fruit Extract Safeguards Frozen Thawed Bovine Sperm Parameters

This study explored the effect of Morus nigra fruit extract (MFE) on microanatomical and physiological parameters of cryopreserved bovine sperms. Three ejaculates were collected on weekly basis, from five fertile bulls. Each semen sample was mixed with dilution medium (DM) (1:2 v/v), centrifuged (32 g) for 10 minutes to pore away the upper-half of the mixture. The remaining material was then extended (1:4 ratios) with standard cryopreservation extender (SCE). Three aliquots (0.3 mL) from this extended sample were further extended with 0.7 mL pure SCE (control group), 0.7 mL SCE containing 3% MFE (MFE-3 group) and 0.7 mL SCE containing 6% MFE (MFE-6 group) respectively to attain final dilutions (25 times dilution of fresh semen ejaculate, containing approximately 1836.5 ± 85.23 million sperms per mL). From each final dilution (0.1 mL) sample was directly analyzed for semen quality parameters (SQPs) and rest of the mate-rial was placed in liquid nitrogen for 24 hrs for post thaw study of the SQPs and in-vitro fertilizability. Re-sults revealed substantial improvement in sperm membrane integrity, motility, and fertilizability in MFE-3 and MFE-6 against SCE group. Likewise, significantly high mean percent number of progressively motile sperms and sperms showing 20 μ/sec or above velocity both before and after cryopreservation, were ob-served in MFE-6 and MFE-3 groups as compared to SCE. These findings show protective effects of MFE for bovine spermatozoa against cryoinjuries and the post thawed oxidative stress.