The objective of the study was to identify some protein factors involved in bovine epididymis (SPZEP) and ejaculated (SPZEJ) sperm functional quality. With this propose, epididymis and ejaculated sperm of 11 Nellore crossbreed animals, 24 to 30 month of age, was evaluated for morphophisyological characteristics and analyzed for the peptides content. The morphophisyological characteristics consisted of progressive motility (MOT, %), velocity, sperm pathologies, and acrosome and chromatin integrity. These evaluations showed that the mean values of the SPZEJ were higher than of SPZEP, 72.3 and 46.4%, respectively. The considered sperm pathologies were the major, minor and total abnormalities. It was observed a significant difference between the means values of the minor and total abnormalities of epididymis and ejaculated sperm, 91.1 and 8.5% and 95.4 and 11.8%, respectively. These differences were caused by the presence of sperm with distal citoplasmatic droplets. The analysis of the protein of epididymis and ejaculated sperm was realized by mass spectrometer, MALDI-TOF method (matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization-time of flight). The method identified low molecular mass proteins, i.e. peptides. The analysis of SPZEJ showed peptides ranging from 1.1 to 26.3 kDa and SPZEP from 1.1 to 11.6 kDa. Some peptides, such as 10.6 and 13.4 kDa, were found only in ejaculated sperm, and the other, such as 6.8 kDa, only in epididymis. A relationship was observed between the 7.4 kDa SPZEP and 4.7 kDa SPZEJ peptides and sperm with Ê 80% motility. These last results suggested the participation of these peptides in the functional processes of spermatic cells. This study used for the first time in this country the MALDI/TOF mass spectrometer method to identify peptides in bovine epididimal sperm.
bovine; ejaculated sperm; epididymal sperm; MALDI/TOF; peptides
