A Bakhshayesh Khiabani - Department of Agriculture and Animal Science, Tabriz University,Tabriz, Iran
GHA Moghaddam - Department of Agriculture and Animal Science, Tabriz University,Tabriz, Iran
T Meroei Milan - Department of Agriculture and Animal Science, Tabriz University,Tabriz, Iran

Background: Cryopreservation of sperm cells causes irrevers-ible damage to the sperm. Factors such as the formation of ice crystals, the production of active oxygen species, temperature changes, lipid peroxidation, changes in membrane composition, and osmotic stress reduce the quality of sperm after thawing. Raffinose, composed of fructose, galactose, and glucose, is a sort of native oligosaccharide and is classified as a trisaccha-ride. Raffinose plays a cryoprotective role by interacting with membrane lipids and proteins and decreasing the risk of intra-cellular ice crystal formation, which causes cellular osmotic dehydration during cryopreservation. The present study was conducted to determine the effects of different levels of Raf-finose on some post-thawed rooster semen quality parameters. Materials and Methods: Semen samples were collected from eight sexually mature Ross 308 breeder roosters. After initial semen assessments, samples with adequate quality were mixed together and diluted with modified Beltsville extender without Raffinose (control) and supplemented with 50, 75, and 100 mM Raffinose. After thawing, sperm viability and motility were measured by Eosin-Nigrosine and Computer-Aided Sperm Analysis (CASA), respectively. The data were analyzed by the GLM procedure of SAS 9.1.Results: Using Raffinose at 50 Mm, 75 mM, and 100 mM sig-nificantly increased sperm motility (60%, 50.25%, and 47.5%, respectively; P< 0.05), and viability (64%, 53.5%, and 51% re-spectively; P< 0.05) in compared with control. In terms of pro-gressive motility, the extender supplemented with 50 mM and 75 mM Raffinose improved sperm progressive motility com-pared to the control group (P< 0.05). But using 100 mM Raf-finose had no significant effect on sperm progressive motility. Conclusion: The results of this study revealed that the addition of Raffinose to the diluent improves significantly the function of post-thawed rooster spermatozoa.

Raffinose, Rooster, Semen, Cryopreservation