jueves, 13 de septiembre de 2018

First announcement of the 7th IWBFG



Our colleagues of the INRA's Fish Physiology and Genomics Department, as organizers of the 7th International Workshop on the Biology of Fish Gametes have published the first announcement of the meeting that will be held in Rennes, France, from 2nd to 6th September 2019, at the AGROCAMPUS OUEST, following a long series of previous Workshops held every 2 years.

Follow their updates here: https://workshop.inra.fr/fishgametes2019/

lunes, 10 de septiembre de 2018

Míriam García Coll se incorpora al equipo



Esta joven bióloga y ex-alumna del Máster Universitario de Acuicultura se acaba de incorporar a nuestro equipo de investigación tras conseguir un contrato predoctoral en la última convocatoria de la Generalitat Valenciana.

Su proyecto de Tesis se titula: “Mejora de la reproducción de la anguila europea mediante tratamientos ambientales y hormonales (IMPROVEEL)” y será dirigida por la Dra. Luz Pérez.

Bienvenida Míriam!

lunes, 3 de septiembre de 2018

Nuestro último artículo, aceptado en Aquaculture



Comparison of European eel sperm cryopreservation protocols with standardization as a target


J.G. Herranz-Jusdado, V. Gallego, M. Morini, C. Rozenfeld, L. Pérez, E. Kása, T. Kollár, A. Depincé, C. Labbé, Á. Horváth, J.F. Asturiano


Abstract

The critical situation of the European eel (Anguilla anguilla) has urged the development of sperm cryopreservation protocols for reproduction in captivity and cryobanking. In the last years, two research groups have developed their own protocols in Spain and Hungary with positive results, but difficult to compare.

Here, a series of experiments were conducted to test the quality of thawed sperm after using both protocols, determining which of them produce the best results and aiming for standardization. The quality of thawed sperm was assessed by studying the motility and kinetic values of thawed sperm from both cryopreservation protocols using a computer-assisted sperm analysis (CASA-Mot) system. In addition, a viability analysis was performed using flow cytometry to test if the cryoprotectants or the freezing-thawing process led to a reduction in spermatozoa survival. Furthermore, since during cryopreservation the sperm was treated with methylated cryoprotectants (DMSO or methanol) that may induce epigenetic changes in the sperm DNA (cytosine methylation) and could affect the offspring, we conducted a luminometric methylation assay (LUMA) to study the DNA methylation levels induced by both protocols.

In this work, all the above-mentioned parameters were analyzed in fresh and frozen-thawed sperm samples. Our results showed that thawed sperm samples from both protocols presented lower sperm motility and velocity, and lower percentage of live cells than those shown in fresh sperm samples. Furthermore, sperm samples from the methanol based protocol showed significantly higher motility, velocity and percentage of live spermatozoa than the same sperm samples treated with the DMSO based protocol. In addition, the DMSO based protocol induced a hypomethylation of sperm DNA compared to fresh samples whereas the methanol based protocol did not alter sperm DNA methylation level. Our results indicate that the methanol based protocol is a more suitable protocol that preserves better the motility and genetic qualities of the European eel sperm.