Vie CONG. INTERN. REPROD. ANIM. INSEM. ARTIF., PARIS, 1968, VOL. Il

EFFECT OF VITAMIN B, (THIAMINE) DERIVATIVES ON
MOTILITY AND VIABIL}TY OF BULL AND GOAT SPERMATOZOA

Y. NISHIKAWA, T. FUKUKAWA, K. UTSUMI, and Y. SASAE
(Faculty of Agr., Kyoto Univ., Kyoto, Japan)
T. HAYAMI (Takeda Chemical Industries Ltd., Tokyo, Japan)

The riotivation for this experiment to test the effects
of thiamine derivatives on spermatozoa was the discovery of
the fact that thiamine itself has no marked influence on
sperm viability, but the addition of garlic juice to thiamine
erhanced its effect remarkably. This experiment is composed
of two parts.

A. THE EFFECTS OF THIAMINE DERIVATIVES ON LIQUID AND

FROZEN SEMEN.
Materials and methods. The chemicals used were thiamine and
14 kinds of its derivatives. The semen of cattle and goat
was diluted ten times with egg yolk citrate dilutor and stored
at 4°C for liquid semen. Also thiamine propyl disulfide (the
term TPD is used in this report), the most effective of the
derivatives on spermatozoa, was added to semen on the 2nd or
Lkth day of preservation and its effect examined. For the
frozen semen of cattle and goat semen, the diluted semen was
poured into 1 ml vinyl straws, cooled to below -80°C in a few
minutes with liquid nitrogen vapor, and preserved in liquid
nitrogen. The concentration of TPD used was about 60 ppm.
The semen was preserved for 24 to 48 hours at L°C after thaw-
ing and its motility was examined. Also conception trials
were performed with frozen semen to which TPD was added.
Results and discussion. 1. The result of adding the optimal
concentration (10 to 60 ppm) of TPD on the 2nd and 4th day of
storage when spermatozoa possibly already agéing are shown in
Table 1. It is clear from these figures that TPD is very
effective in enhancing viability of spermatozoa alresdy agéeing.
In comparing the influence of several derivatives, on sperm
viability some are found far more effective than thiamine its-
elf, and TPD is most effective. Within the range of 10 to
10,000 ppm thiamine has no effect on sperm viability, but its
high concentration has no harmful effect. On the contrary TPD
is very effective in enhancing sperm viability at about 60 ppm,
but it becomes very harmful at concentrations higher than a
certain level. The same trend was observed in other kinds of
derivatives. This may be due to excessive penetration into
spermatozoa of the thiamine derivatives as mentioned later.
The optimal concentrations of the thiamine derivatives on sperm
viability vary according to individval bulls.