MORPHOMETRY OF NORMAL AND TERATOZOOSPERMIC CANINE SPERM HEADS USING AN IMAGE ANALYZER - WORK-IN-PROGRESS

Combining the traditional morphologic evaluation of spermatozoa with c omputer assisted image analysis adds randomness, objectivity, repeatab ility and accuracy to morphometric measurements. We collected semen fr om 10 fertile, normospermic dogs aged 1 to 7 yr and from 3 teratozoosp ermic breed-matched dogs. Sperm head morphology was examined in Giemsa -stained smears by light microscopy, using a computer-assisted image a nalyzer and by transmission electron microscopy. We found significant variation in sperm head area, length, width and degree of roundness am ong normospermic individual dogs, indicating that it would be necessar y to examine many more dogs before the size and shape of normal dog sp ermatozoa could be determined. The normospermic dogs were used as cont rols for the teratozoospermic cases. Case 1. A 2-yr-old subfertile Cav alier King Charles Spaniel had semen with small and narrow-based sperm heads and a proximal cytoplasmic droplet in most of the spermatozoa. With the image analysis system, sperm heads were shown to be smaller a nd more oval than in normospermic dogs. The variatons in size and shap e were similar in magnitude to those of control dogs. An examined infe rtile half-brother had similar semen quality. Case 2: A 3-yr-old Petit Basset Griffon Vendeen with 2 unsuccesfull matings exhibited spermato zoa with severe abnormalities. Measured by image analyzer, sperm heads were irregular in shape and very small in area. One of the two litter mates examined had semen of the same quality as the case dog. Case 3: A 3-yr-old fertile Golden Retriever had semen with giant sperm heads i n about 50% of spermatozoa. Image analyzing results revealed 2 populat ions of different sized sperm heads. Giant heads consisted of 52.2% of all spermatozoa. The results of the study reported here suggest that the image analysis technique may be useful in evaluating structural ch anges in sperm morphology, supplementing visual assessment that is use d in conventional methods. (C) 1997 by Elsevier Science Inc.