Motile human sperm sorting by an integrated microfluidic system

Abstract

The integrated microfuidic system consists of laminar stream-based microchannels and flow cytometric analysis to enhance the human sperm motility sorting efficiency. This modified sperm sorter provided a new selection that had advances in resolving traditional sorting problems. In order to design the sorting sorting device, CFDRC simulation was performed to analyze the phenomenon of 3-D flow field. Microscopic examination revealed that sperms with different motility. For the purpose of confirming the real sorting situation, the proportions of living and dead sperm after sorting were readily identified and quantified through use of flow cytometric analysis. The viability results of sample injected from two-outlet and four-outlet chip were 95.2% and 92.2% that presented the higher quality of sorting sperm. As a result, more amounts of living sperms that mean motile sperms were counted in four-outlet channels. With this approach, the characteristics of laminar flow and a novel design were utilized to demonstrate the microfuidic system with high efficiency for sperm motility sorting. Therefore, the optimized microfuidic system provides a good opportunity to use and an inexpensive requirement to select the most appropriate sperms before IVF (in vitro fertilization) process. © 2014 Huang HY, et al.