Effect of buffer composition, sephadex grade and column size on filtration based quality improvement of semen from Murrah Buffalo bull

Sixty semen ejaculates collected at weekly interval from four Murrah Buffalo bulls over a period of seven months (Nov.1999 to May 2000) were used in the present study. Three buffer medium (sodium citrate, TES and Tris) were used for soaking of sephadex. Three grades of sephadex (G-15,G-100, and G-200) were used for preparation of columns. Columns of three different height (one, two and three cm) were used for separation of semen. Twenty semen ejaculates were used in each project. In the first experiment each semen ejaculates was divided into four parts. One part was kept as control and other three parts were passed thought one cm column of sephadex G-15 prepared in three different buffers. There was significant (p<0.05) increase in percent progressive sperm motility and percent live spermatozoa and decrease in percent abnormal spermatozoa and percent spermatozoa with damaged acrosome as well as sperm numbers after filtration through all the three columns. Sperm quality obtained in the filtrate of column prepared in Tris buffer was better in comparison to other two buffers. So the Tris buffer was used in the second trial. Twenty semen ejaculates were used in this experiment. Each semen ejaculate was divided into four parts. One part was kept as control (non-filtered) and other three parts were passed through columns of different grade of sephadex (G-15, G-100 and G-200). Progressive sperm motility and live sperm percentage improved significantly while decline in percent abnormal spermatozoa and percent spermatozoa with damaged acrosome and sperm concentration was observed after filtration through all the columns as compared to control (non-filtered) semen. Since post filtration quality of semen was better in the sephadex G-100 column, therefore it was selected for the next experiment. In third experiment, Tris buffer and sephadex G-100 were used for preparing columns of different height (one, two and three cm) and twenty semen ejaculates were filtered. The quality characteristics of semen (percent progressive sperm motility, percent live spermatozoa and sperm concentration) after filtration through one cm column were significantly (p<0.05) higher than after filtration through columns of ltwo and three cm height. However non-significant (p>0.05) difference due to height of columns was observed for percent abnormal and percent damaged acrosome but 1 cm column comparatively gave better result than of 2 and 3 cm column height.