Three SCA upgrades and training to Germplasm, Conservation and Reproductive Biotechnologies (GCRB) Laboratory, Agricultural Research Council (ARC), Irene, Pretoria

Figure 1: The ARC-GCRB personnel

Figure 1: The ARC-GCRB personnel.

The ARC-GCRB laboratories based in Pretoria-Irene, is well known for its reproductive biology research on indigenous South African domestic animals. There are dozens of unique indigenous South African breeds among bulls, rams, bucks, boars and cocks. The Nguni bulls are among the best known indigenous South African cattle breed with a well recorded history.

These bulls have their origins in North Africa and over a period of 800 years migrated with African tribes from North to Southern Africa. In the process there has been selection for hardiness; this cattle breed require less water and less food than the European breeds and is also toleranct against ticks and disease and has high thermal tolerance levels. So they are ideally suited for South African conditions and farmers now breed with these bulls in very arid areas not possible for most other bull breeds. In a recent blog we also alluded to the very hardy Tankwa goats who survive in semi dessert areas under harsh conditions but are highly reproductively fit with excellent semen/sperm quality.

Figure 2: The ARC personnel and the community in front of the Gamete-Tek mobile laboratory

Figure 2: The ARC personnel and the community in front of the Gamete-Tek mobile laboratory.

It is not surprising that in 2009, the ARC-GCRB laboratory obtained the Microptic SL, Sperm Class Analyzer® (SCA®) system to start evaluating the semen/sperm quality of these indigenous breeds by Prof Lucky Nedambale. They then obtained a further two SCA® systems in the last four years and now upgraded all three systems for different SCA® modules to the latest version. Microptic SL with their unique Remote assistance system could do all the updates via Barcelona, Spain.

Gerhard van der Horst, senior consultant to Microptic, then provided a two days training course on all the SCA® modules to  Mr Masindi Mphaphathi (in charge of the CASA-SCA® sperm anlysis component and students training) and about 12 students working towards Masters degrees at different Universities (Figure 1). The training also involved updates on making smears for morphology, vitality and sperm functional tests such as hyperactivation using the very latest techniques. This training aspect was supported by Delfran, the distributors of SCA® in South Africa.

Figure 3: Evaluation of frozen/thawed semen before AI in an ARC Gametek Cryo-mobile truck laboratory on the field.

Figure 3: Evaluation of frozen/thawed semen before AI in an ARC Gametek Cryo-mobile truck laboratory on the field.

One of the highlights of the training was that one of the SCA® systems was installed in a GameteTek Cryo-Mobile laboratory (4 x 4 truck). The idea of developing a GameteTek Cryo-Mobile laboratory was to provide (livestock reproduction) services to livestock farmers in the field and it is vital for rapid field work (Figure 2).

The importance here is that many of the rural South African black farmers who breed these animals,  live in very remote areas that could be easily accessible by GameteTek Cryo-Mobile laboratory. So a sophisticated GameteTek Cryo-Mobile laboratory with SCA®- CASA system is taken to these areas by this “space age truck” to evaluate the quality of the semen/sperm of the these domestic breeds in remote areas of South Africa (Figure 3).

The advantage is that farmers are now advised on site regarding which are high quality animals and which ones should rather be eliminated from the breeding herd. Furthermore, some of the good quality animals (Figure 4) are kept by ARC herd to ensure that the best genetic material is cryopreserved/frozen for future use (artificial inseminations or in vitro fertilization).

Figure 4: The ARC Nguni semen donors

Figure 4: The ARC Nguni semen donors.

 

Prof Gerhard van der Horst (PhD, PhD)
Senior Consultant
MICROPTIC S.L.

Masindi Mphaphati
MSc. Animal Science