title: Comparison of a swim-up technique with the Hamilton Thorn Motility Analyser for measurement of sperm velocity and motility.
abstract: A colorimeter-based swim-up (SU) technique was developed and compared with a Hamilton Thorn Motility Analyser (HTM) for the evaluation of ram semen. SU parameters (sperm velocity in microns s-1, proportion of rapidly moving spermatozoa, and motility index) were significantly correlated (r from 0.47 to 0.98, P from < 0.05 to < 0.001) with most HTM parameters in semen containing known proportions of motile and immotile spermatozoa and in semen that was cold shocked, aged, diluted-stored and frozen-thawed. There were, however, no significant correlations between sperm velocity and HTM parameters in the fresh semen studied, possibly because of the small number of observations (n = 21) and narrow range of semen quality (83 +/- 2% subjectively scored motility) available. It is concluded that the swim-up technique is a simple, cheap, objective and reliable means of measuring sperm velocity and motility in ram semen.
authors.affiliation: Department of Animal Science, University of New England, NSW, Australia.
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Suttiyotin
authors.forename: C J
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Thwaites
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D003080:Cold Temperature; D003124:Colorimetry; D015925:Cryopreservation; D005069:Evaluation Studies as Topic; D066298:In Vitro Techniques; D008297:Male; D012661:Semen / Q000166:cytology; D012756:Sheep; D013081:Sperm Motility; D013997:Time Factors