The objective of this study was to use a microfluidic sperm sorter (MFSS), designed to isolate motile human spermatozoa with laminar flows (no centrifugation), for porcine IVF. Boar spermatozoa were diluted at 1 x 10(8) cells/mL with a diluent containing 20% seminal fluid and flowed with modified TCM-199 (mM199, with 5 mM caffeine) to introduce motile sperm into the exit chamber for IVF. In Exp...

Sulphatase preparations from Abalone entrails, the limpet Patella vulgata and ox liver, as well as artificial substrates for these enzymes, were used in the hamster in vitro fertilization system to study the possible roles of sperm sulphatases in sperm-zona pellucida interactions. p-nitrophenyl sulphate, p-nitrocatechol sulphate, ascorbate 2-sulphate, as well as D-glucopyranose and D-galactopyr...

Sperm penetration assay (SPA) scores obtained from cryobanked semen were correlated with therapeutic insemination (TI) fecundity in a group of established sperm donors, thereby evaluating the efficacy of the SPA in screening donors for sperm banking. While the SPA has been used to separate fertile from infertile males, we altered assay conditions to use frozen semen and to distinguish performan...

The present study reports data on post-translational modifications in the glycosylation status during epididymal passage and significance in fertility of a 33 kDa glycoprotein of rhesus monkey (Macaca mulatta), designated as MEF3 (monkey epididymal fluid protein 3). MEF3 exhibited strong affinity for N-linked alpha-D-mannose groups and O-linked N-Ac-galactosamine linkages in epididymal fluids a...

This paper addresses the often-cited problems associated with haptic display of rigid bodies or “virtual walls”. Traditional haptic interfaces employ an actuator directly coupled to the human operator that provides a force proportional to wall penetration distance and velocity. A new paradigm for design and control of haptic displays is proposed that utilizes a de-coupled actuator and pre-conta...

Incubation of hamster eggs with trypsin or chymotrypsin, but not with a series of glycosidases or lipases, prevents capacitated spermatozoa from binding to the zona pellucida so that fertilization is prevented (Hartmann & Gwatkin, 1971 ; Gwatkin, Williams & Andersen, 1973). Inactivation of the binding sites for spermatozoa on the zona pellucida by a trypsin-like protease released by discharge o...