Optimización de las técnicas de acondicionamiento del semen equino para los procesos de conservación seminal

Abstract

For many years in human assisted-?reproduction procedures there have been special protocols to prepare and improve sperm quality. In the equine industry, artificial insemination techniques have been greatly developed, although cryopreserved semen is still less used comparing to others species due to spermatic survival problems and individual variability. This individual variability has also been established between breeds. In general, 20-?30% of stallions are considered to have a good frozen-?thawed sperm quality “Good Freezers”, 40-?60% average frozen-?thawed quality and the other 20-?30% are not suitable for cryopreservation “Bad Freezers”. All these limitations determine that artificial insemination with frozen semen in the equine is less widespread than in other species and finding systems and procedures to increase the number of stallions and ejaculates suitable to be cooled and cryopreserved is and important goal. It has been suggested that equine sperm quality could be enhanced, particularly in stallions identified as “bad coolers/freezers”, by removing some of the seminal plasma by simple centrifugation. However, such procedure does not select the best spermatozoa as all sperm and debris are presented in the resulting pellet...