SPERM PROTEINS AS POTENTIAL MARKERS OF BOAR FERTILITY

The morphological parameters are currently used solely for predicting sperm quality, unfortunately failing to do so due to heavy bias. The objective of this study was to investigate the proteome of boar sperm obtained from sires with different fertility to determine if any of the observed proteins were associated with conventional semen parameters and relative in vivo fertility of boars used for artificial insemination. We investigated semen collected from fertile boars. Each ejaculate was assessed for routine semen quality parameters such as ejaculate volume, sperm concentration and percent progressively motile sperm by computer-assisted sperm analysis (CASA). Two-dimensional gel electrophoresis was performed and it showed differential spots subjected to software analysis that revealed putative targets based on protein molecular weight and isoelectric point. The data from CASA correlated to the results from silver stained gels. We found that the sperm specimen with worst motility and vitality parameters also had the lowest number of unique proteins and enriched gene ontology biological processes. Our study is the first one investigating the proteome of the sperm cells, rather than the seminal plasma fluid in a boar. This preliminary study suggests that the sperm proteome comparison studies could yield sets of proteins that are either positive or negative markers of sperm quality and that further studies on the selected sets should be performed.