Vet World Vol.15 June-2022 Article-10
Research Article
Veterinary World, 15(6): 1481-1488
https://doi.org/10.14202/vetworld.2022.1481-1488
First study of in vitro protective effect of Lepidium meyenii (Maca) on frozen–thawed bovine spermatozoa
2. Ferdows School of Paramedical and Health, Birjand University of Medical Sciences, Birjand, Iran.
3. CICECO-Aveiro Institute of Materials and Department of Medical Sciences, University of Aveiro, 3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal.
4. School of Allied Health Sciences, World Union for Herbal Drug Discovery, and Research Excellence Center for Innovation and Health Products, Walailak University, Nakhon Si Thammarat 80160, Thailand.
Background and Aim: Lepidium meyenii Walp (Maca) is an herbaceous plant that grows in the Peruvian Andes and it has been widely used as a nutritional supplement and fertility enhancer and has been used in the treatment of a variety of diseases, such as rheumatism, respiratory disorders, and anemia. The most notable feature of Maca is its potent antioxidant capacity, which helps in the scavenging of free radicals and protection of cells from oxidative stress. This study aimed to evaluate the in vitro effect of Maca extract on thawed sperm cells from bulls.
Materials and Methods: Three dilutions of 1, 10, and 100 μg/mL of Maca extract were incubated with frozen–thawed bovine semen and analyzed at 1, 3, and 24 h of exposure time, evaluating the activity of the extract on the DNA, motility, morphology, viability, integrity of the membrane and acrosome of spermatozoa.
Results: The Maca extract improved the studied sperm parameters of motility, acrosome integrity, vitality, and DNA integrity of sperm cells at a concentration of 10 –g/mL, and at 1 –g/mL, an improvement was observed in the morphology and integrity of the membrane. However, the best activity of the Maca extract was observed on the DNA integrity of the sperm, which was effective at the three concentrations evaluated after 24 h of incubation.
Conclusion: The results indicate that L. meyenii can help in maintaining spermatozoa cellular integrity after the frozen–thaw process, especially in the protection against DNA fragmentation. Therefore, Maca would be a feasible supplementation to protect sperm to maintain their fertile ability after thawing. Keywords: Aberdeenangus, antioxidant, bull, frozen-thawed semen, Lepidium meyenii (Maca), reproductive health.
Keywords: Aberdeenangus, antioxidant, bull, frozen-thawed semen, Lepidium meyenii (Maca), reproductive health.
How to cite this article: Leiva-Revilla J, Rolón M, Siyadatpanah A, Pereira ML, Nissapatorn V (2022) First study of in vitro protective effect of Lepidium meyenii (Maca) on frozen–thawed bovine spermatozoa, Veterinary World, 15(6): 1481-1488.
Received: 14-12-2021 Accepted: 20-04-2022 Published online: 14-06-2022
Corresponding author: Miriam Rolón and Veeranoot Nissapatorn E-mail: rolonmiriam@gmail.com and nissapat@gmail.com
DOI: 10.14202/vetworld.2022.1481-1488
Copyright: Leiva-Revilla, 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.