Green Christine, Rickard Jessica P, de Graaf Simon P, Crean Angela J
School of Life and Environmental Sciences, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia.
Sydney School of Veterinary Science, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia.
Biology (Basel). 2020 Feb 18;9(2):33. doi: 10.3390/biology9020033.
Males can adjust sperm motility instantaneously in response to the perceived risk of sperm competition. The speed of this response suggests that sperm motility is regulated by changes in seminal plasma rather than changes in the sperm cells themselves. Hence, here we test whether inter-ejaculate variation in seminal plasma can be used to alter sperm quality prior to use in assisted reproductive technologies. We supplemented fresh ejaculates of Merino rams with seminal plasma collected from previous 'donor' ejaculates to test whether changes in sperm kinetics were related to the relative quality of donor to focal ejaculates. We found a positive relationship between the change in sperm traits before and after supplementation, and the difference in sperm traits between the donor and focal ejaculate. Hence, sperm motility can be either increased or decreased through the addition of seminal plasma from a superior or inferior ejaculate, respectively. This positive relationship held true even when seminal plasma was added from a previous ejaculate of the same ram, although the slope of the relationship depended on the identity of both the donor and receiver ram. These findings indicate that seminal plasma plays a key role in the control and regulation of sperm kinetics, and that sperm kinetic traits can be transferred from one ejaculate to another through seminal plasma supplementation.
雄性能够根据所察觉到的精子竞争风险即时调整精子活力。这种反应的速度表明，精子活力是由精浆的变化而非精子细胞自身的变化所调节的。因此，在此我们测试在辅助生殖技术中使用之前，精浆中射精间的差异是否可用于改变精子质量。我们用从之前“供体”射精中收集的精浆补充美利奴公羊的新鲜射精，以测试精子动力学的变化是否与供体射精和目标射精的相对质量有关。我们发现补充前后精子特征的变化与供体射精和目标射精之间精子特征的差异呈正相关。因此，通过分别添加优质或劣质射精的精浆，精子活力可以增加或降低。即使添加的是同一只公羊之前射精的精浆，这种正相关关系依然成立，尽管该关系的斜率取决于供体公羊和受体公羊的身份。这些发现表明，精浆在精子动力学的控制和调节中起着关键作用，并且精子动力学特征可通过精浆补充从一次射精转移到另一次射精。
