Preservative Impact of Curcumin on Sperm Variables and Seminal Plasma Antioxidant Activity in Summer and Winter Goat Semen after Cryopreservation

During semen cryopreservation, oxidative stress (OS) leads to marked reduction in structure and function of sperm cells. Curcumin (CM) acts as antioxidant for scavenging free radical induced by OS during cryopreservation. The current work aimed to evaluate the CM impacts on sperm variables of cryopreserved goat semen collected in summer and winter season in Egypt. Semen of five Damascus goat bucks was pooled, diluted (1:20), equilibrated (5oC for 2h), divided into three aliquots supplemented with CM at 0, 10, and 20 μg/ml in Tris extender, representing E0, E10, and E20, respectively. Post-thawed semen was incubated and evaluated at 0, 1, 2, 5, and 7h post-incubation at 37oC. Results showed that all sperm variables were significantly better in winter than in summer. Supplementation of CM (20 μg/ml) resulted in beneficial effects on maintaining sperm progressive motility, vitality, acrosome integrity of summer and winter goat post-thawed semen incubated for 7h. Both CM levels showed positive impact on increasing total antioxidant capacity and reducing malondialdehyde level in sperm medium of post-thawed summer and winter season. The action of CM on improving sperm variables, lipid peroxidation, and antioxidant status was observed to be more obvious on summer than on winter semen.In conclusion, adding curcumin to goat semen extenders can facilitate and enhance semen processes and storage protocols to improve fertility of cryopreserved goat spermatozoa in semen collected in summer or winter season.