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Development of a boar sperm cell activator for improved pork production

More than 100 potential sperm cell activators have been identified in a High-Throughput Screening (HTS) of a chemical library consisting of about 300.000 lead-like compounds. The HTS was performed in collaboration with Evotec AG, Hamburg, using their worl d renovated library of drug-like substances. The initial screen was performed on living human sperm cells and has later been tested on boar sperm cell with very promising results. Preliminary results show that the Spermatech sperm activators are able to s ignificantly improve the motility (swimming) of all boar sperm tested and that the effect is most profound on boars having lower sperm quality. Furthermore, the motility of boar sperm stored for seven days can be brought back to almost the same value as f resh samples. In summary, this indicates that a sperm cell activator may decrease the number of inseminations needed, increase litter size and enhance storage time for boar sperm. The activator will also allow more attention to breeding parameters like me at quality and animal health and less attention on sperm cell motility as is the case today.At present time we have four candidate compounds deduced from the screen and re-retested in several assays and on various sperm samples for verification. Three o ut of the four molecules are chemically very similar, providing us with important structure-activity relationships (SAR). This fact is a strong indication that the sperm activation effect is a true, specific biologic effect and not an artefact of the scre en or assay conditions. Literature- and patent searches confirms the novelty of the invention.Calculations made in the business plan estimates that 0.5 USD per dose will be generated for Spermatech. With a 20% market penetration, the boar sperm activato r will add 20 million USD annual revenue to Spermetech in the present market.

Prosjektleder:
Ken Roger Rosendal
Institusjon:
 
Aktivitetsnavn:
Bionæringsprogram
Prosjektstatus:
Bevilgning
Prosjektperiode:
01.01.2013 - 31.12.2015
Geografi:
Norge/OSLO
Fagområder:
Landbruks- og fiskerifag/Tverr flerf. landbruk,fisk.fag
Prosjektnummer:
224835