Vet World   Vol.11   May-2018  Article-4

Research Article

Veterinary World, 11(5): 590-597

https://doi.org/10.14202/vetworld.2018.590-597

Effect of the essential oil of Rosmarinus officinalis (L.) on rooster sperm motility during 4°C short-term storage

L. Touazi1,2, B. Aberkane3, Y. Bellik4, N. Moula5, and M. Iguer-Ouada2
1. Ecole Nationale Superieure Veterinaire, Rue Issad Abbes, Oued Smar, Algiers, Algeria.
2. Associated Laboratory in Marine and Aquaculture Ecosystems, Faculty of Nature and Life Sciences, University of Bejaia. Algeria.
3. Department of Biology, Faculty of Nature and Life Sciences and Earth Sciences. University of Bouira, Algeria.
4. Department of Biology, Faculty of Nature and Life Sciences, University of El Bachir el Ibrahimi, Bordj Bou Arreridj, 34000, Algeria.
5. Department of Animal Productions, University of Liege, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, 4000 Liege, Belgium.

Background and Aim: This study aimed to investigate the protective effect of Rosmarinus officinalis (L.) essential oil on rooster sperm motility during 4°C short-term storage.

Materials and Methods: R. officinalis essential oil was analyzed using gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry to identify the active components. 10 of 45-week-old Hubbard commercial broilers were subjected to biweekly semen collections during 3 weeks. At each collection, sperm was pooled and divided into four aliquots and then diluted with Tris extender supplemented with 870, 87, or 8.7 μg/ml of R. officinalis essential oil, identified as treatments R, R5, and R10, respectively. Tris-based extender without any supplementation was considered as a control group. Diluted sperm was then stored at 4°C in the refrigerator and analyzed at 0, 6, 24, and 48 h using a computer-assisted sperm analyzer. Different semen parameters were measured including total motility, progressive motility, gametes velocities (straight line velocity [VSL], curvilinear velocity [VCL], and average path velocity [VAP]), amplitude of the lateral head displacement [ALH], and beat-cross frequency [BCF].

Results: The phytochemical analysis of R. officinalis essential oil revealed the presence of 25 active components including seven major molecules: Camphor (18.88%), camphene (5.17%), 1,8-cineole (7.85%), β-thujene (13.66%), α-thujene (4.87%), chrysanthenone (12.05%), and β-cubenene (7.97%). The results showed a beneficial effect of R. officinalis essential oil on sperm cells motility, particularly when using the lowest concentrations, 8.7 and 87 μg/ml. Progressive motility and gametes velocities (VCL, VSL, and VAP), materializing the quality of gametes motility, showed highly statistically significant values (p<0.01) in 8.7 and 87 μg/ml treatments, especially from 6 h of storage at 4°C. Conversely, the highest concentration (870 μg/ml) showed harmful effects with a total spermicidal activity after 24 h of storage.

Conclusion: The current results revealed the positive impact of R. officinalis essential oil on rooster sperm at 4°C short-term storage probably through fighting against oxidative stress and cold shock damages. Keywords: antioxidant, avian semen, liquid storage, rosemary essential oil.

Keywords: antioxidant, avian semen, liquid storage, rosemary essential oil.

How to cite this article: Touazi L, Aberkane B, Bellik Y, Moula N, Iguer-Ouada M (2018) Effect of the essential oil of Rosmarinus officinalis (L.) on rooster sperm motility during 4°C short-term storage, Veterinary World, 11(5): 590-597.

Received: 22-12-2017  Accepted: 06-04-2018     Published online: 09-05-2018

Corresponding author: L. Touazi   E-mail: touazil@gmail.com

DOI: 10.14202/vetworld.2018.590-597

Copyright: Touazi, et al. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http:// creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.