Cryopreservation and egg yolk extender components modify the interaction between seminal plasma proteins and the sperm surface.

It is known that the addition of seminal plasma (SP) or SP proteins either before freezing or post thawing show contradictory results on sperm quality and fertility due to the interference between SP and the extender. Thus, the aim of this study was to determine whether egg yolk (EY) interferes with SP ability to protect the functionality and fertility of ram sperm during freeze-thawing by modifying the interaction between seminal plasma proteins and the sperm plasma membrane. Ejaculated or epididymal ram sperm collected during the breeding season were incubated with SP in the presence or absence of EY or soybean lecithin-based extenders before cryopreservation. No significant differences were observed after thawing in sperm quality (total and progressive sperm motility, membrane integrity, plasma membrane functionality, percentage of non-capacitated sperm) between the extenders, either in presence or absence of seminal plasma (P ≥ 0.05). The amount of proteins retained by the sperm surface normalized to number of cells was diminished after freeze-thawing compared to their fresh counterparts for all the treatments (P < 0.05), demonstrating that cryopreservation weakens the interaction between external proteins and the sperm surface. The electrophoretic analysis of sperm-bound proteins showed that the retention of several SP peptides onto the sperm surface (based on densitometry estimation) was affected by the presence of the diluents on both ejaculated and epididymal sperm (P < 0.05). Moreover, variation was observed in the protein pattern after thawing compared to the corresponding fresh samples, suggesting that freezing affects surface protein profile. Pregnancy rate after artificial insemination at fixed time was higher (P < 0.05) for samples treated with reconstituted with heterologous SP compared to those supplemented with 20% additional seminal plasma or control samples despite the presence of EY. In conclusion, both freeze-thawing and EY components affected the interaction among seminal plasma proteins and the sperm surface, although these changes were not reflected on different sperm quality parameters under our experimental conditions. In vivo fertility of sperm reconstituted with exogenous SP before freezing was improved even in the presence of EY components considering an optimal ratio SP:sperm.