Establishment of Cryopreservation of Leopard Cat Semen Collected by Electro-ejaculation Method

Abstract

The aim of this study was to evaluate the post-thawed characteristics of leopard cat semen. In this experiment,semen was collected from two leopard cats (A and B) at wild animal center in Seoul Grand Park in Korea. After collection, the sperms were washed with D-PBS and diluted by the freezing medium (Irvine science, USA) and stored in liquid nitrogen. The post-thawed concentration was 357 × 10^6sperms/ml for A and 97 × 10^6 sperms/ml for B. The viability of post-thawed sperm from A and B individual was 24.0% and 19.0%, respectively. Pre-freezing motility of A and B individual semen was 68.54% and 56.65. Leopard cat A had more normal sperm than that of B (69.5%vs. 54.5%). Acrosome integrity analysis detected live (14.5% vs. 9.0%), damage (39.0% vs. 44.0%) and dead (46.0%vs. 47.0%) in leopard cat A and B, respectively. The present results concluded that leopard cat semen can be collected successfully by electro-ejaculation method and cryopreserved successfullyfor future use in different assisted reproductive technologies. The cryopreservation protocol needs to be modified for increasing post-thawed viability of leopard cat spermatozoa