TY - JOUR
T1 - High-throughput sorting and analysis of human sperm with a ring-shaped laser trap
AU - Shao, Bing
AU - Shi, Linda Z.
AU - Nascimento, Jaclyn M.
AU - Botvinick, Elliot L.
AU - Ozkan, Mihrimah
AU - Berns, Michael W.
AU - Esener, Sadik C.
N1 - Funding Information:
Acknowledgments This work was supported by funds from the Scripps Institute of Oceanography, the US Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR # F9620-00-1-0371 to MWB), and the Beckman Laser Institute Inc. Foundation. The authors would like to thank IGO Medical Group for providing semen samples from humans.
PY - 2007/6
Y1 - 2007/6
N2 - Sperm motility is an important concept in fertility research. To this end, single spot laser tweezers have been used to quantitatively analyze the motility of individual sperm. However, this method is limited with throughput (single sperm per spot), lacks the ability of in-situ sorting based on motility and chemotaxis, requires high laser power (hundreds of milliWatts) and can not be used to dynamically monitor changes in sperm swimming behavior under the influence of a laser beam. Here, we report a continuous 3-D ring-shaped laser trap which could be used for multi-level and high-throughput (tens to hundred sperm per ring) sperm sorting based on their motility and chemotaxis. Under a laser power of only tens of milliWatts, human sperm with low to medium velocity are slowed down, stopped, or forced to change their trajectories to swim along the ring due to the optical gradient force in the radial direction. This is the first demonstration of parallel sperm sorting based on motility with optical trapping technology. In addition, by making the sperm swimming along the circumference of the ring, the effect of laser radiation, optical force and external obstacles on sperm energetics are investigated in a more gentle and quantitative way. The application of this method could be extended to motility and bio-tropism studies of other self-propelled cells, such as algae and bacteria.
AB - Sperm motility is an important concept in fertility research. To this end, single spot laser tweezers have been used to quantitatively analyze the motility of individual sperm. However, this method is limited with throughput (single sperm per spot), lacks the ability of in-situ sorting based on motility and chemotaxis, requires high laser power (hundreds of milliWatts) and can not be used to dynamically monitor changes in sperm swimming behavior under the influence of a laser beam. Here, we report a continuous 3-D ring-shaped laser trap which could be used for multi-level and high-throughput (tens to hundred sperm per ring) sperm sorting based on their motility and chemotaxis. Under a laser power of only tens of milliWatts, human sperm with low to medium velocity are slowed down, stopped, or forced to change their trajectories to swim along the ring due to the optical gradient force in the radial direction. This is the first demonstration of parallel sperm sorting based on motility with optical trapping technology. In addition, by making the sperm swimming along the circumference of the ring, the effect of laser radiation, optical force and external obstacles on sperm energetics are investigated in a more gentle and quantitative way. The application of this method could be extended to motility and bio-tropism studies of other self-propelled cells, such as algae and bacteria.
KW - Axicon
KW - Cell sorting
KW - Laser trapping
KW - Sperm motility
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U2 - 10.1007/s10544-006-9041-3
DO - 10.1007/s10544-006-9041-3
M3 - Article
C2 - 17226100
AN - SCOPUS:34249991999
SN - 1387-2176
VL - 9
SP - 361
EP - 369
JO - Biomedical Microdevices
JF - Biomedical Microdevices
IS - 3
ER -