High-throughput characterisation of bull semen motility using differential dynamic microscopy

Abstract

AbstractWe report a high-throughput technique for characterising the motility of spermatozoa using differential dynamic microscopy. A large field of view movie (~ 10mm2) records thousands of cells (e.g. ≈ 5000 cells even at a low cell density of 20 × 106 cells/ml) at once and yields averaged measurements of the mean (υ) and standard deviation (σ) of the swimming speed, a head oscillation amplitude (A0) and frequency (f0), and the fraction of motile spermatozoa (α). Interestingly, the measurement of α relies on the swimming spermatozoa enhancing the motion of the non-swimming population. We demonstrate the ease and rapidity of our method by performing on-farm characterisation of bull spermatozoa motility, and validate the technique by comparing laboratory measurements with tracking. Our results confirm the long-standing theoretical prediction that for swimming spermatozoa.