Teaching in Pula and Zagreb, Croatia

On the invitation of our colleague Dr. Ana Gavrilović from the University of Zagreb in Croatia, Ákos has spent the period between May 23-27th in Pula and Zagreb. This included teaching the basics of cryobiology, fish sperm and germ cell cryopreservation and their transplantation to undergraduate students of the University of Pula and to graduate students in Zagreb. The trip was also a good opportunity for Ákos to practice his original qualification of a fisheries and aquaculture person as he joined a fishing expedition with Ana and her student Neven Iveša. As you see in the picture below, the catch was quite abundant and a real professional treat for Ákos.

Ákos giving a presentation in Pula

The catch of the day

New review paper published in Theriogenology

A new review paper with the co-authorship of Ákos has been published in Theriogenology. Enjoy!

Juan German Herranz-Jusdado, Victor Gallego, Marina Morini, Christoffer Rozenfeld, Luz Pérez, Tamás Müller, Ákos Horváth, Hiromi Ohta, Juan F. Asturiano: Eel sperm cryopreservation: An overview. Theriogenology, 133, 210-215. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.theriogenology.2019.03.033

The eels are teleost fishes from the order Anguilliformes that includes several species with high commercial value. Due to the high interest for aquaculture production of some eel species and for the need to restore eel species that are endangered, several research groups have directed their research toward developing protocols to cryopreserve the spermatozoa of Japanese eel (Anguilla japonica) and European eel (Anguilla anguilla). In this review, we provide an overview on the different protocols that have been developed so far. The first developed protocols used DMSO as cryoprotectant in both species with good success, obtaining sperm motilities of over 45% in Japanese eel and over 35% in European eel. Moreover, sperm cryopreserved using DMSO was successfully used in fertilization trials, although with low fertilization rates. However, recent studies show that DMSO produce epigenetic changes in eel sperm and therefore, the last developed protocols used methanol as cryoprotectant instead. Cryopreservation protocols using methanol as cryoprotectant, showed improved motility values in both Japanese and European eel. In addition, the latest protocols have been adapted to cryopreserve larger volumes of sperm of up to 5 mL, which is useful for larger scale fertilization trials.

The present study introduces the state of the art and future perspectives of the eel sperm cryopreservation to be applied in aquaculture and biological conservation programs.