Do Sperm and Seminal Plasma Micrornas Have Similar Patterns of Expression in Boar Semen?

Although sperm and seminal plasma differ in their origin, physical and chemical properties of seminal plasma influence sperm function. Seminal plasma is a fluid medium containing substances from the testes, epididymides and accessory glands. Composition of seminal plasma varies among animal species and in boars, vesicular glands, prostate and bulbourethral glands are major contributors to the volume and contents. While the origin of some components of seminal plasma are known, the source of recently discovered seminal plasma microRNAs is unknown, in part because of the difficulty of recovering and characterizing RNA from porcine sperm and seminal plasma ...