Struttura testicolare, produzione seminale e variazione della qualità dopo crioconservazione nel seme di alpaca e di riproduttori di razze locali per la loro conservazione genetica

Responsabili di progetto

Flavia Pizzi, Wilfredo Huanca

Accordo

PERÙ - CONCYTEC-expired - Consejo Nacional de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación Tecnológica

Bando

CNR/CONCYTEC 2012-2014

Dipartimento

Agroalimentare

Area tematica

Scienze bio-agroalimentari

Stato del progetto

Nuovo

Proposta di ricerca

South American domestic camelids, alpacas (Vicugna pacos) and llamas (Lama glama) are species include as inducing ovulators, with a great economic importance to the Andean populations of Peru and Bolivia because they provide fiber and meat for highland people. Low productivity require include the use of biotechnologies as the artificial Insemination but this technique has not been widely applied to camelids because at difficulties in developing suitable protocols for dilution and conservation of alpaca semen. Semen collections in camelids present difficulties by the particular characteristics as high viscosity, low volume, and site of deposition of semen and individual variations. Little information exists about sperm production, semen conservation and evaluation of sperm quality after freezing.  
In Italian local breeds semen cryopreservation is performed for the breeding management, through artificial insemination,  and for ex situ conservation of genetic material  in cryobanks. Material stored in cryobanks is a back up in case genetic problems occur in the population.
The interest in preserving special germplasm has resulted in increased attention to the recovery of functional sperm from the epididymis of dead animals (Foote 2000). Semen collection from epididymis can be the only option we have to preserve male gametes from animals of high value or from endangered species (Leibo and Songsasen 2002; Fickel et al. 2007).
The present proposal can provide important improvement in the management of fertility of south american camelidis and of italian local goat breeds for the improvement of their productivity and genetic conservation.

Obiettivi della ricerca

The research groups involved in this proposal have different complementary expertises: the Peruvian team have developped semen collection and use of extender to fresh semen (Raymundo et al 2004), frozen semen (Santiani et al 2005) and more recent results on testicular abnormalities (Cordero et al 2008; Barrios et al 2011) but is necessary more research to know physiological and histological aspects on alpacas males.  The Italian team has a vast experince in innovative methods of semen analysis, recovery methods and extenders of epididymal spermatozoa and in the creation of cryobanks. The research proposal has the following objectives:
a) Evaluate testicular structure of adults male and estimate daily sperm production in two season year (breeding and non breeding season)
b) Evaluate semen extender on sperm quality after thawed and obtained from two techniques of collection (Artificial Vagine and Electroeyaculation) and epididymal extraction
c) Study microbiological quality of semen obtained from two techniques of collection and epididymal extraction
d) Creation of cryobanks of animal genetic resources by using innovative methods of semen recovery
 

Ultimo aggiornamento: 05/07/2025