Theriogenology Laboratory, Southern Regional Station of Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), National Dairy Research Institute, Bengaluru, 560030, Karnataka, India.
Theriogenology Laboratory, Southern Regional Station of Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), National Dairy Research Institute, Bengaluru, 560030, Karnataka, India; and Corresponding author. Email:
Reprod Fertil Dev. 2021 Apr;33(6):427-436. doi: 10.1071/RD20304.
Poor semen quality and infertility/subfertility are more frequent in crossbred than zebu bulls. Using a high-throughput liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS)-based approach, we established the preliminary metabolomic profile of crossbred and zebu bull spermatozoa (n=3 bulls each) and identified changes in sperm metabolomics between the two groups. In all, 1732 and 1240 metabolites were detected in zebu and crossbred bull spermatozoa respectively. After excluding exogenous metabolites, 115 and 87 metabolites were found to be unique to zebu and crossbred bull spermatozoa respectively whereas 71 metabolites were common to both. In the normalised data, 49 metabolites were found to be differentially expressed between zebu and crossbred bull spermatozoa. The significantly enriched (P<0.05) pathways in spermatozoa were taurine and hypotaurine metabolism (observed metabolites taurine and hypotaurine) in zebu and glycerophospholipid metabolism (observed metabolites phosphatidylcholine, phosphatidylethanolamine and phosphatidylserine) in crossbred bulls. The abundance of nitroprusside (variable importance in projection (VIP) score >1.5) was downregulated, whereas that of l-cysteine, acetyl coenzyme A and 2'-deoxyribonucleoside 5'-diphosphate (VIP scores >1.0) was upregulated in crossbred bull spermatozoa. In conclusion, this study established the metabolomic profile of zebu and crossbred bull spermatozoa and suggests that aberrations in taurine, hypotaurine and glycerophospholipid metabolism may be associated with the higher incidence of infertility/subfertility in crossbred bulls.
杂种公牛的精液质量和不孕/不育比瘤牛公牛更为常见。我们使用高通量液相色谱-串联质谱（LC-MS/MS）方法，建立了杂种公牛和瘤牛公牛精子的初步代谢组学图谱，并鉴定了两组之间精子代谢组学的变化。在所有，1732 和 1240 种代谢物分别在瘤牛和杂种公牛精子中被检测到。排除外源性代谢物后，分别发现 115 和 87 种代谢物是瘤牛和杂种公牛精子特有的，而 71 种代谢物是两者共有的。在归一化数据中，发现 49 种代谢物在瘤牛和杂种公牛精子之间存在差异表达。精子中显著富集（P<0.05）的途径是瘤牛精子中的牛磺酸和次牛磺酸代谢（观察到的代谢物牛磺酸和次牛磺酸）和杂种公牛精子中的甘油磷脂代谢（观察到的代谢物磷脂酰胆碱、磷脂酰乙醇胺和磷脂酰丝氨酸）。硝普盐（变量重要性投影（VIP）得分>1.5）的丰度下调，而 L-半胱氨酸、乙酰辅酶 A 和 2'-脱氧核苷 5'-二磷酸（VIP 得分>1.0）的丰度在杂种公牛精子中上调。总之，本研究建立了瘤牛和杂种公牛精子的代谢组学图谱，并表明牛磺酸、次牛磺酸和甘油磷脂代谢的异常可能与杂种公牛更高的不孕/不育发生率有关。
