QUANTITATIVE OBSERVATIONS OF FLAGELLAR MOTILITY OF CAPACITATING HUMANSPERMATOZOA

For technical reasons sperm head movement is assessed in kinematic ana lysis, while flagellar movement is the determining factor of head move ment, not vice versa. It follows then that the development of new kine matic values to describe the movement of capacitating human spermatozo a should include the analysis of their flagellar movement, The aim of this study was to establish quantitative differences between flagellar movement patterns of hyperactivated and non-hyperactivated spermatozo a which could then be used in the evaluation of new centroid-based kin ematic values, Spermatozoa were prepared by swim-up from semen into cu lture medium supplemented with 30 mg/ml human serum albumin, Sperm mov ement was recorded in 50 mu m-deep chambers using a 200 Hz video syste m, Sperm movement was classified based on flagellar movement, with 24 non-hyperactivated and 26 hyperactivated spermatozoa included in the s tudy, Flagellar analysis was performed using both a semi-automated ana lysis system (SIAM FLAG; 30 images at 200 Hz) and manual methods (100 Hz), Hyperactivated spermatozoa had significantly larger flagellar bea t angles (greater than or equal to 87 degrees) and significantly lower flagellar beat frequencies (less than or equal to 29.4 Hz) than non-h yperactivated human spermatozoa, In addition, the flagellar wave ampli tude was significantly greater and the bend diameter significantly sma ller for hyperactivated spermatozoa in the proximal region of the flag ellum (up to 20 mu m from the head-midpiece junction), The velocity of the hyperactivated wave was low in this region, although it was signi ficantly slower than the non-hyperactivated wave in all regions of the sperm tail.