THE EFFECT OF RESVERATROL ON THE VITALITY OF MICE EPIDIDYMAL SPERMATOZOA

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of various concentrations of the natural polyphenol resveratrol (RES) on the vitality of mouse epididymal spermatozoa. In the experiments, concentrations of 0, 5, 10 and 25 μmol/L were applied to the sperm incubation medium. Subsequently, sperm motility and viability analyses were performed at time 0 h and after 2 h of incubation at 37 °C. Sperm motility was analyzed by the computer-assisted semen analysis (CASA). The mitochondrial membrane potential was determined using the fluorescent dye JC-1. Membrane integrity was analyzed by fluorescence staining with carboxyfluorescein diacetate (CFDA), the acrosome integrity was assessed using the fluorescent peanut agglutinin (PNA) dye and we also evaluated the percentage of necrotic cells positive for the fluorescent dye propidium iodide (PI). Our results indicate a significant (P <0.05) increase of the sperm motility following the addition of 10 μmol/L RES at 0 h and also a significant increase after 2 h at 10 μmol/L (P <0.01) and 25 μmol/L RES (P <0.05) when compared to the control. At a RES concentration of 10 μmol/L, the mitochondrial activity was significantly increased (P <0.05) after 2 h. In the case of membrane integrity, no statistically significant changes were observed at time 0 h, but after 2 h there was a significant (P <0.05) increase in the membrane integrity following the addition of 25 μmol/L and 10 μmol/L RES (P <0.01) in comparison with the control. There were no statistically significant results with respect to the percentage of PI-positive cells. The number of cells with an intact acrosome integrity at 0 h as well as 2 h was significantly (P <0.05) increased following the administration of 10 μmol/L RES. The results of our study show that low concentrations of resveratrol have protective effects on the epididymal spermatozoa of mice.