Division of Animal Reproduction, Gynaecology and Obstetrics, Faculty of Veterinary Sciences and Animal Husbandry, Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology of Kashmir, Shalimar, Srinagar 190006, Jammu & Kashmir, IndiaIndia
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With the inception of semen freezing technology, it has become possible to disseminate the superior germplasm through artificial insemination, which really revolutionized the dairy industry. However, production of high quality sperm insemination dose is crucial to the survival of this technology. Cryopreservation of sperm is a damaging phenomenon resulting in about 50% drop in the quality from pre-freeze to post-thaw.1 One of the pre-dominant contributor to this damage is the presence of dead sperm which act as a source of free radical generation in the semen. The Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS) cause an oxidative injury to the viable sperm, hence removal of such sperm from the semen could lead to improvement in the quality. To this, nanotechnology based semen purification offers an efficient way to eliminate the dead and/or prematurely capacitated spermatozoa from the semen.
Keywords: revolutionized; oxidative injury
VETERINARY MEDICINE Open Journal http://dx.doi.org/10.17140/VMOJ-1-e001 Vet Med Open J ISSN 2475-1286 Farooz Ahmad Lone* Division of Animal Reproduction, Gynaecology and Obstetrics, Faculty of Veterinary Sciences and Animal Husbandry, Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology of Kashmir, Shalimar, Srinagar 190006, Jammu & Kashmir, India *Corresponding author Farooz Ahmad Lone, BVSc, MVSc, NET (ICAR) Assistant Professor Division of Animal Reproduction Gynaecology and Obstetrics Faculty of Veterinary Sciences and Animal Husbandry Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology of Kashmir Shalimar, Srinagar 190006 Jammu & Kashmir, India Tel. +91-9622552335; 0194-2262208 E-mail: dr.farooz462@gmail.com Article History Received: January 20th, 2016 Accepted: January 21st, 2016 Published: January 21st, 2016 Citation Lone FA. Nanotechnology based semen purification: a panacea. Vet Med Open J. 2016; 1(1): e1-e2.
doi: 10.17140/VMOJ-1-e001 Copyright ©2016 Lone FA. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Volume 1 : Issue 1 Article Ref. #: 1000VMOJ1e001 Nanotechnology Based Semen Purification: A Panacea Page e1 Editorial With the inception of semen freezing technology, it has become possible to dissemi- nate the superior germplasm through artificial insemination, which really revolutionized the dairy industry. However, production of high quality sperm insemination dose is crucial to the survival of this technology. Cryopreservation of sperm is a damaging phenomenon resulting in about 50% drop in the quality from pre-freeze to post-thaw.1 One of the pre-dominant contribu- tor to this damage is the presence of dead sperm which act as a source of free radical genera - tion in the semen. The Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS) cause an oxidative injury to the viable sperm, hence removal of such sperm from the semen could lead to improvement in the quality. To this, nanotechnology based semen purification offers an efficient way to eliminate the dead and/or prematurely capacitated spermatozoa from the semen.
Nanotechnology utilizes nanoparticles with size ranging from 1-100 nm. Ubiquitin protein under normal physiological conditions, is added to the dead and defective spermatozoa while their transit down the epididymis through a process that has been termed as protein ubiq- uitination.2 Magnetic nanoparticles are prepared by coating them with either antibodies against ubiquitin or lectin labels such as Pisum Sativum Agglutinin (PSA) or Peanut agglutinin (PNA) which can bind to glucosidic residues that become exposed on the outer surface of a sperm with either inherently compromising or prematurely activated acrosome. 3 These labeled nanopar - ticles are mixed with the semen sample and a strong magnet is then applied to concentrate the dead and defective spermatozoa at the bottom, that either bind to lectin coated or antibody coated nanoparticles. In this way dead or defective sperm are removed from the sample and a high quality semen sample is obtained.
The preliminary research on nanobased semen purification has produced some excel- lent results in boar and bull. 4 So far no toxic or teratogenic effect of nanoparticles have been reported in dam or new born and a significant increase in conception rates after artificial in- semination with nanopurified semen has been documented. 4 However, this technology awaits further investigation to become a part of semen freezing technology in future. The nanotech - nology based semen purification looks simple but has a tremendous potential to improve the quality of semen and can turn an infertile semen into a fertile one through the removal of dead and defective sperm from the semen sample. It is going to create a thrill among andrologists in near future.