Issue 12, 2021

Selection of high-quality sperm with thousands of parallel channels

Abstract

Sperm selection is essential for successful fertilization and embryo development. Current clinical sperm selection methods are labor-intensive and lack the selectivity required to isolate high-quality sperm. Microfluidic sperm selection approaches have shown promise but present a trade-off between the quality and quantity of selected sperm – clinicians demand both. The structure of the female reproductive tract helps to isolate a sufficient quantity of high-quality sperm for fertilization with densely folded epithelium that provides a multitude of longitudinally oriented pathways that guide sperm toward the fertilization site. Here, a three-dimensionally structured sperm selection device is presented that levers this highly parallelized in vivo mechanism for in vitro sperm selection. The device is inserted in a test tube atop 1 mL of raw semen and provides 6500 channels that isolate ∼100 000 high-DNA-integrity sperm for assisted reproduction. In side-by-side clinical testing, the developed approach outperforms the best current clinical methods by improving the DNA integrity of the selected sperm subpopulation up to 95%. Also, the device streamlines clinical workflow, reducing the time required for sperm preparation 3-fold. This single-tube, single-step sperm preparation approach promises to improve both the economics and outcomes of assisted reproduction practices, especially in cases with significant male-factors.

Graphical abstract: Selection of high-quality sperm with thousands of parallel channels

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
21 Nov 2020
Accepted
05 May 2021
First published
13 May 2021

Lab Chip, 2021,21, 2464-2475

Selection of high-quality sperm with thousands of parallel channels

M. Simchi, J. Riordon, J. B. You, Y. Wang, S. Xiao, A. Lagunov, T. Hannam, K. Jarvi, R. Nosrati and D. Sinton, Lab Chip, 2021, 21, 2464 DOI: 10.1039/D0LC01182G

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