chapter 3 - RiuNet
chapter 3 - RiuNet
chapter 3 - RiuNet
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RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SPERM MOTILIY AND FERTILIZATION RATES<br />
Finally, fertilization and hatching rates showed a high and significant<br />
correlation between them (Fig. 5).<br />
Hatching rate (%)<br />
100<br />
80<br />
60<br />
40<br />
20<br />
0<br />
r = 0.99<br />
y = 1.01x - 2.95<br />
0 20 40 60 80 100<br />
Fertilization rate (%)<br />
Figure 5. Relationship between fertilization and hatching rates (n=15; the<br />
experimental unit is each Petri Dish). Data from Trial 2 was used to determine<br />
the correlations and linear regression equation was calculated.<br />
4. Discussion<br />
Sperm/egg ratio and sperm quality are the main factors affecting<br />
fertilization and hatching success in artificial insemination trials (Linhart et<br />
al., 2008 and Trippel and Neilson, 1992). During the present study, the<br />
unavailability of low quality fresh sperm samples forced us to work with<br />
spermatozoa at different post-activation times with the aim of mimicking<br />
sperm samples of different qualities. Thus, during this study the sperm<br />
activated after 5 s represent the high-quality sperm samples (high motility<br />
and velocity values) while the sperm activated after 20 (high motility and<br />
intermediate velocity values) and 40 s (low motility and velocity values)<br />
resemble the medium and low quality sperm samples, respectively.<br />
However, it must be noted that the swimming time/speed of sperm<br />
activated after 20 and 40 s may be shorter than medium and low quality<br />
fresh samples.<br />
In this study we have demonstrated that sperm/egg ratio and sperm quality<br />
are factors which are strongly related to each other: when high-quality<br />
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