Techniques of separation of motile and immotile spermatozoa
Answers
he ideal sperm separation technique should (i) be quick, easy and cost-effective, (ii) isolate as much motile spermatozoa as possible, (iii) not cause sperm damage or non-physiological alterations of the separated sperm cells, (iv) eliminate dead spermatozoa and other cells, including leukocytes and bacteria, (v) eliminate toxic or bioactive substances like decapacitation factors or reactive oxygen species (ROS), and (vi) allow processing of larger volumes of ejaculates. Since none of the methods available meets all these requirements, a variety of sperm separation techniques is mandatory in clinical practice to obtain an optimal yield of functionally competent spermatozoa for insemination purposes. Depending on the ejaculate quality, these methods have different efficiency and areas of use. In the conventional swim-up technique, functional spermatozoa can come into close cell-to-cell contact with defective sperm or leukocytes by centrifugation, thus causing massive oxidative damages of the sperm plasma membrane by ROS and consequently of sperm functions [20]. Therefore, the quality of the ejaculates has direct consequences on the choice of a sperm separation method.