any veterinarians and AI stud managers have inquired about the significance of cytoplasmic droplets on boar sperm cells. I currently advocate using ejaculates for artificial insemination (AI) which have fewer than 20% morphologically abnormal sperm, with no more than 15% attributable to cytoplasmic droplets. There is, however, little published research on cytoplasmic droplets and their effect o...

Antibiotics are mandatory additives in semen extenders to control bacterial contamination. The worldwide increase in resistance to conventional antibiotics requires the search for alternatives not only for animal artificial insemination industries, but also for veterinary and human medicine. Cationic antimicrobial peptides are of interest as a novel class of antimicrobial additives for boar sem...

PSP-I/PSP-II heterodimer is a major protein of boar seminal plasma which is able to preserve, in vitro, the viability, motility, and mitochondrial activity of highly extended boar spermatozoa for at least 5 hours. However, little is known about the binding pattern of the heterodimer to the sperm plasma membrane and its eventual relation with the maintenance of the sperm functionality. The prese...

This study investigated seasonal changes in the metabolic performance of spermatozoa and activity of the antioxidant enzymes in the seminal plasma of three wild boar/domestic pigs (aged 1.5 to 2.5 years) and the activity of the antioxidant enzymes in fluids of the cauda epididymidis and vesicular glands from 16 wild boar/domestic pig hybrids (aged 1 to 3 years). Parameters of the sperm metaboli...

This study investigated two hypotheses: 1) that consistent between-boar variation in frozen semen quality exists and is genetically determined, and 2) that morphologically distinct subpopulations of spermatozoa exist within fresh boar ejaculates and that the incidence of these subpopulations is correlated with semen quality following cryopreservation. Five ejaculates were collected from each of...

The aim of this study was to evaluate the quality of boar sperm using two different freezing techniques. The protocols were proposed by Westendorf and Paquignon. In both methods the seminal plasma is removed. In the protocol Paquignon the seminal plasma is removed at environmental temperature and the Westendorf protocol suggests that the plasma withdrawal should be made at 15oC. The sperm suspe...

The study was performed on 4 609 ejaculates obtained from 32 boars, including 14 purebred and 18 two-breed crosses. The ejaculates were collected manually every 4-5 days. The study involved ejaculates collected from each boar from the first day of its insemination use until the day of semen depletion. Each ejaculate was assessed for the following physical parameters: ejaculate volume, sperm con...

Boar spermatozoa contain a novel pyruvate kinase (PK-S) that is tightly bound at the acrosome of the sperm head and at the fibrous sheath in the principal piece of the flagellum, while the midpiece contains a soluble pyruvate kinase (PK). PK-S could not be solubilized by detergents, but by trypsin with no loss of activity. Purified PK-S as well as PK-S still bound to cell structures and soluble...

In the field of reproductive medicine, assessment of sperm motility is a key factor for achieving successful artificial insemination, in vitro fertilization, or intracellular sperm injection. In this study, the motility of boar sperms was estimated using real-time imaging via confocal microscopy. To confirm this confocal imaging method, flagellar beats and whiplash-like movement angles were com...

We apply Learning Vector Quantization (LVQ) in automated boar semen quality assessment. The classification of single boar sperm heads into healthy (normal) and non-normal ones is based on grey-scale microscopic images only. Sample data was classified by veterinary experts and is used for training a system with a number of prototypes for each class. We apply as training schemes Kohonen’s LVQ1 an...