Design of a gradient-rheotaxis microfluidic chip for sorting of high-quality Sperm with progressive motility

Chung-Hsien Huang; Ching-Hung Chen; Teng-Kuan Huang; Farn Lu; Jack Yu Jen Huang; Bor-Ran Li

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2023.107356

Design of a gradient-rheotaxis microfluidic chip for sorting of high-quality Sperm with progressive motility

iScience. 2023 Jul 17;26(8):107356. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2023.107356. eCollection 2023 Aug 18.

Authors

Chung-Hsien Huang^{1

2}, Ching-Hung Chen³, Teng-Kuan Huang^{1

2}, Farn Lu³, Jack Yu Jen Huang^{3

4}, Bor-Ran Li^{1

2

5

6}

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Biomedical Engineering, College of Electrical and Computer Engineering, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan.
² Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, College of Electrical and Computer Engineering, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan.
³ Taiwan IVF Group, Hsinchu, Taiwan.
⁴ Division of Reproductive Endocrinology & Infertility, The Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.
⁵ Center for Emergent Functional Matter Science, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan.
⁶ Medical Device Innovation and Translation R&D Center, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan.

Abstract

Assisted reproductive technology (ART) is an important invention for the treatment of human infertility, and the isolation of high-quality sperm with progressive motility is one of the most critical steps that eventually affect the fertilization rate. Conventional sperm separation approaches include the swim-up method and density gradient centrifugation. However, the quality of isolated sperm obtained from both approaches can still be improved by improving sorted sperm motility, minimizing the DNA fragmentation rate, and removing abnormal phenotypes. Here, we report a Progressive Sperm Sorting Chip (PSSC) for high-quality sperm isolation. Based on the rheotaxis behavior of sperm, a gradient flow field is created in the chip for progressive sperm sorting. Clinical experiment results for 10 volunteers showed that greater than 90% of isolated sperm exhibit high motility (> 25 μm/s), high linearity (0.8), and a very low DNA fragmentation rate (< 5%). In addition, the whole process is label and chemical free. These features aid in gentle sperm sorting to obtain healthy sperm. This device uniquely enables the selection of high-quality sperm with progressive motility and might be clinically applied for infertility treatment in the near future.

Keywords: Biodevices; Biotechnology; Interdisciplinary physics.