Effect of Swim-Up and Percoll Treatment on Sperm Quality and In vitro Embryo Development in Yak

This study was designed to determine the effect of different sperm preparation treatments on yak sperm quality and in vitro embryo development.Frozen-thawed semen samples were treated using swim-up or percoll gradient centrifugation methods.Sperm concentration,progressive motility,recovery of motile sperm,membrane integrity,acrosome and chromatin integrity were scored and compared in recovered samples and controls.In addition,the effects of two sperm separation treatments on embryos capable of cleavage and in vitro development to the blastocyst stage were evaluated.Swim-up separated sperm showed a higher motility,while the concentration of spermatozoa recovered and percent recovery of motile sperm were higher with percoll gradient centrifugation separation.According to the optical and electron microscopies,swim-up produced higher percentage of sperm with intact plasma membrane and acrosome than percoll gradient centrifugation separation.However,there was no difference in the percentage of sperm with intact chromatin between two treatment groups.Cell numbers in the blastocysts of two groups were not different.The blastocyst rate was similar in both groups,whereas cleavage rate was higher when swim-up was used.

Comparison between the quality and function of sperm after semen processing with two different methods

Aim: To compare the recovery rate of morphologically normal and chromatin condensed spermatozoa from native se-men samples using the SpermPrep^(TM) filtration columns and Percoll gradient centrifugation and to determine the influenceof the two processing techniques on fertilization and pregnancy rates in an IVF-ET program. Methods: Sixteen se-men samples obtained from patient's husband were included in this study. Each was divided into two aliquots. The firstaliquot was processed with SpermPrep^(TM) filtration columns and the second, Percoll gradient centrifugation. Smears weremade before and after semen processing with both methods for the evaluation of chromatin condensation (chromomycineCMA3) as well as morphology (strict criteria) of spermatozoa. One hundred and seventy oocytes were retrieved fromthe patients and the oocytes from each patient were subdivided into two sets : one set was inseminated using spermatozoaprocessed with SpermPrep^(TM) and the other inseminated after semen processing with Percoll gradient centrifugation. Re-sults: The Percoll method yielded a significantly higher percentage of chromatin condensed (90.8 ±6.5% vs 82.3±8.8%, P = 0.017) and morphologically normal spermatozoa (12.9±7.4% vs 6.9±4.8%, P =0.001) in com-parison to SpermPrep^(TM). Whereas, sperm count recovery rate was significantly higher after the use of SpermPrep^(TM) thanafter the Percoll gradient centrifugation. The fertilization rate was similar between the two methods. Conclusion:Semen processing with Percoll should be recommended for intracytoplasmic sperm injection as the natural selection isbypassed and the SpermPrep^(TM) technique could be recommended for IVF and IUI programs as the sperm concentrationplays a more significant role in these procedures.