As shown in Table 1, there was no difference in quality between the 4 fractions of Boujaâd ram semen at the time of dilution. Supplementation of the tris-egg yolk extender with argan oil at 1%
maintained a motility equivalent to that obtained at 0h of storage until 72 h of storage. Semen stored with 1% argan oil showed also a significantly higher motility of spermatozoa after 8, 24,
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48 and 72h of storage when compared to 0%, 5% or 10% of argan oil (P<0.05). The quality de -creased after 8h in all other fractions (0%, 5%, 10%) when compared to 0h storage time. Motility was not different from 8 h until 72 h in the fractions containing 0% (control) and 5% argan oil.
However, the extender supplemented with 10% argan oil seemed to have a deleterious effect on motility which significantly lower between 8 h and 24 h of storage and was significantly lower than that of the control fraction (0%) at 24, 48 and 72 h of storage (P < 0.05).
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Table 1. Means of motile spermatozoa percentage of semen preserved in tris-egg yolk extender with differents concentration of argan oil
a,b,c Values in rows with different superscripts differ significantly (P < 0.05).
IV – Discussion
Oxidative stress is one of the most important factors associated with fertility decrease over sperm preservation. The plasmatic membrane of spermatozoa contains a great number of unsaturated fatty acids which are susceptible to lipid peroxidation, and the consequences are numerous, ranging from membrane damage to cell functions disorder and low motility (Aurich et al.,1997;
Ball et al., 2001).
This study is the first evaluation of the influence of argan oil concentration on ram sperm motili-ty during liquid storage. Our results showed that the addition of argan oil at 1% improve sperm motility of ram spermatozoa during liquid preservation at 15°C for 3 days. Such effect has been recorded in many previous studies based on other antioxidants. In fact, it was proven that superoxide dismutase, catalase, and cytochrome C and glutathione peroxidase could improve the mo -tility of the liquid-preserved ram semen (Maxwell and Stojanov, 1996; Rzyzosiak et al., 2000;
Bilodeau et al., 2001; Sarlos et al.,2002).
V – Conclusions
To conclude, our results on Boujaâd ram showed that the addition of argan oil at 1% as an antiox-idant improve sperm motility during liquid preservation at 15°C for up to 3 days. Further investi-gations will be run to assess the effect of argan oil addition on lipid peroxidation and generation of H2O2. The effect of different single components of argan oil on ram semen motility and viabil-ity should also be evaluated.
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