The study aimed to assess the quality of sperm recovered from the epididymal cauda after cooling the complex testis-epididymis (CTE) of dogs using ACP-106c extender. Sixty adult male dogs, weighing 10-20 kg were used. After euthanasia, CTE was removed and it was immersed in 0.9% saline and transported to the laboratory in cooler at 30ºC. For cooling and recovery of epididymal spermatozoa, the 60 pairs of CTE were divided into four groups, according to the refrigeration time of the CTE and subsequent sperm recovery: G0h, G6h, G12h and G18h, wherein each pair of CTE remained zero, six, 12 or 18 hours at 4ºC respectively. The recovery of sperm epididymal tail was conducted by flotation technique using ACP-106c or Tris extender. For each epididymis, it was added 1.0 mL of either extenders, preheated to 37ºC for 5 minutes. They were then centrifuged at 800g/5 minutes to remove the cell debris. Morphology, functionality and total and progressive motility, and parameters obtained by CASA were evaluated. Data were analyzed by ANOVA followed by Turkey test (P <0.05). In all parameters assessed, there was no difference between the extenders used (P>0.05). The values of total motility groups G0h, G6H, G12H, and G18h for ACP-106c were 84.4±7.7, 81.6±11.6, 88.3±6.5 and 69.5±16.9 respectively, and for Tris 85.2±8.7, 77.4±14.3, 79.0±17.8 and 65.4±17.9 respectively. A decrease in sperm quality was observed after 18 hours of cooling in both extenders. Thus it can be concluded that the ACP-106c may be used to recover the epididymal spermatozoa chilled and may be viable for up to 12h cooling.
Refrigeration; epididymis; dogs
