Effect of Vitamin E supplementation on the enzymatic activity of selected markers in Aohan fine-wool sheep testis

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of dietary Vitamin E supplementation on the testicular ‘marker’ enzyme activity and Vitamin E content in Aohan fine-wool sheep. Thirty male Aohan fine-wool sheep (5 months of age) with similar body weight were selected from the Aohan fine-wool sheep-breeding farm of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China. The sheep were randomly divided into five groups and supplemented with 0, 20, 200, 1000 or 2400 IU sheep−1 d−1 Vitamin E for 12 months. Three sheep in each group were slaughtered at 17 months to collect a testis sample for testicular marker enzyme analysis. The results showed that, compared to Control, supplementing the diet with Vitamin E at 200 IU sheep−1 d−1 significantly increased the content of Vitamin E in testis and improved the activity of testicular mitochondrial ATPase (P < 0.01), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) (P < 0.01), sorbitol dehydrogenase (SDH) (P < 0.01), and alkaline phosphatase (ALP) (P < 0.05). The present study demonstrated that supplementing Vitamin E can have a positive role in improving testicular marker enzyme activity and that the optimum range of dose appeared to be 100–200 IU sheep−1 d−1.