Abstract
Successful artificial insemination relies on the use of high quality spermatozoa. One measure of sperm quality is swimming force. Increased swimming force has been correlated with higher sperm swimming speeds and improved reproductive success. It is hypothesized that by increasing sperm swimming speed, one can increase swimming force. Previous studies have shown that red light irradiation causes an increase in sperm swimming speed. In the current study, 633nm red light irradiation is shown to increase mean squared displacement in trapped sperm. The methodology allows for comparison of relative swimming forces between irradiated and non-irradiated samples.
Highlights
Large numbers of thorough studies of spermatozoa quality and characteristics have been conducted, there is still much that is unknown about sperm motility
Sperm swimming force is another metric for sperm quality which is highly dependent on the energy dissipation of individual sperm
A schematic of this method is shown in Fig. 1(b). 2314 images of a single motile trapped sperm were analyzed and a Gaussian fit was applied to the histogram of orientations to produce a probability density function
Summary
Large numbers of thorough studies of spermatozoa quality and characteristics have been conducted, there is still much that is unknown about sperm motility. Sperm swimming force is another metric for sperm quality which is highly dependent on the energy dissipation of individual sperm. It is implied that higher swimming force is indicative of increased ability to out-compete other sperm for successful fertilization [1]. It has been suggested that sperm swimming force is instrumental in fertilization of the egg. Sperm must first penetrate the cumulus oophorus to reach the zona pellucida, where fertilization occurs. The sperm acrosome contains enzymes to help digest the cumulus oophorus, it has been shown that sperm are capable of penetrating the egg without them [2], indicating the importance of mechanical force. Another study correlated the swimming force of epididymal sperm with fertilization [3] wherein it was shown that sperm with lower swimming force produced fewer embryos, implying a relationship between swimming force and fertilization
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