Effects of Butylated Hydroxytoluene on Freezability of Ram Spermatozoa (Report‪)‬

INTRODUCTION Cryopreservation is an important and widely used element for long-term storage of sperm cells. However, this technique induces partially irreversible damages to sperm (Amann and Pickett, 1987; Purdy, 2006), which may decrease motility, viability and the fertilization rate after artificial insemination (Matsuoka et al., 2006). Therefore, considerable care must be exercised during semen freezing to avoid damaging the sperm unduly at this stage of the processing. It has been suggested that membrane is a primary target of chilling or freezing damage in cells (Morris et al., 1981) and occurs when cell membrane undergo the phase transition from liquid crystalline to a gel phase (Darin-Bennett and White, 1977).