title: Vitality and morphology of human spermatozoa. Studies on the resistance to storage and centrifugation and on the removal of dead spermatozoa.
abstract: The effect of storage of human spermatozoa at room temperature and in the refrigerator was studied. Loss of vitality was found to be linear and the same within the temperature range studied. Vitality was reduced by 0,9% per hour on average. The rate of this loss did not show much variation. The morphology of both all spermatozoa and the living sperm population studied separately was only slightly impaired by storage. The effect of centrifugation and resuspension of spermatozoa was studied separately. Vitality was found to be reduced by gravitation forces of 800 g for 20 minutes whereas no effect on morphology was noted by this treatment. Gravitation forces of 600 g and below did not significantly affect the spermatozoa. Two methods of separation of spermatozoa with better motility and morphology from the rest of the semen sample were studied, (1) filtration through a layer of glass beads, (2) "sperm rise" after centrifugation at low gravitation force. The clinical value of these procedures is probably limited to selected cases.
mesh_terms: D002469:Cell Separation; D002470:Cell Survival; D002498:Centrifugation; D005374:Filtration; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D013081:Sperm Motility; D013094:Spermatozoa / Q000166:cytology / Q000502:physiology*; D013696:Temperature; D013997:Time Factors