An examination of hyaluronidase enzyme activity in four different sheep breeds

Abstract

Hyaluronidases are excessively found in nature and involved innumerous biological functions. Hyaluronidases primarily degradehyaluronic acid (HA) and have significant role in fertilizationduring acrosomal reactions. Therefore, the measurement of hya-luronidase enzyme activity may provide valuable informationabout acrosomal function and the fertilizing ability of the sperm.The aim of this study was to investigate the semen hyaluronidaseenzyme activity changes among four different sheep breeds(Akkaraman, Suffolk, Merino, and Kıvırcık).In this research, ten ram testis tissues from each sheep breed,a total of 40, were cut and collected on ice. Ovine testicular hya-luronidase of four different sheep breeds was purified from acrude ammonium sulfate-precipitated fraction of an extract ofram testis. The semen hyaluronidase enzyme activity differencesbetween the sheep breeds were examined by spectrophotometri-cally monitoring the appearance of HA at 232 nm. Analysis ofvariance test was used to examine the possible mean differencesamong the four different sheep breeds.The observed mean differences in enzyme units for Kıvırcık,Suffolk, Akkaraman, and Merino were as follows 891.60, 817.60,729.40, and 681.60, respectively. The observed mean differencesin absorbance values for Kıvırcık, Suffolk, Akkaraman, andMerino were as follows 0.4455, 0.4088, 0.3648, and 0.3408,respectively.The results showed that the observed mean differences inenzyme units and absorbance values among the four differentsheep breeds were not statistically significant. Despite that, inaverage Kıvırcık had higher values for the activity of each sampleand yet it had the smallest values for standard deviation. There-fore, in order to achieve higher enzyme activity and morehomogenous samples Kıvırcık breed should be preferred.