Motility-driven sperm-sorting microfluidic chip with little cell damage for oligozoospermia patients

Various assisted reproductive techniques (ARTs) are now available for infertile couples. Obtaining a large amount of highly active sperm is critical for successful ART operations. Our purpose is to use polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) microfluid biochip to collect highly active sperm from semen with the characteristic of laminar flow. With a fixed diluted semen viscosity and a fixed flow rate ratio of buffer and diluted semen, this microfluid biochip can sort diluted semen into two groups: sorted and waste. Results of flow cytometry analysis showed that the viability of the sorted group is higher by at least 10% for both normal and oligozoospermia samples. Our biochip, compared with the traditional centrifuge, is a novel tool for preparing live sperm for ARTs.