A motile human sperm head fixation method

Summary. In a solution containing less than 5% seminal fluid, human sperm has a tendency to attach its head on the smooth surface of an object. Based on such a phenomenon, a simple method was developed to fix sperm head on the surface of glass slide. This method was demonstrated by studying caffeine effect on the tail movement of human sperm in phosphate buffered saline. By analysing the images recorded on a videocassette, caffeine, a well known stimulator of human sperm motility, was shown to induce an immediate increase of sperm TBF (tail beat frequency) and the amplitude of TBF increase was found to be larger in sperm with lower basal TBF value. This method can provide a flock of head-fixed motile sperm for a precise sperm tail movement assessment or for other purposes.