title: Traceability of human sperm samples by direct tagging with polysilicon microbarcodes.
abstract: The increasing number of patients undergoing assisted reproductive technology (ART) treatments and of cycles performed in fertility centres has led to some traceability errors. Although the incidence of mismatching errors is extremely low, any error is unacceptable, therefore different strategies have been developed to further minimize these errors, such as manual double-witnessing or electronic witnessing systems. More recently, our group developed a direct tagging method consisting of attaching microbarcodes directly to the zona pellucida of human oocytes/embryos. Here, this method is taken a step further by using these microbarcodes to tag human semen samples, demonstrating that the barcodes are not toxic and do not interfere in the selection of motile spermatozoa nor in the cryopreservation of the sperm samples. In addition, when this tagging system was applied to an animal model (rabbit), pregnancy rate and kitten viability were not affected.
authors.affiliation: Departament de Biologia Cel⋅lular, Fisiologia i Immunologia, Facultat de Biociències, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Bellaterra, Spain.
authors.forename: Sergi
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Novo
authors.affiliation: Departament de Biologia Cel⋅lular, Fisiologia i Immunologia, Facultat de Biociències, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Bellaterra, Spain.
authors.forename: Inmaculada
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Mora-Espí
authors.affiliation: Instituto de Microelectrónica de Barcelona IMB-CNM (CSIC), Bellaterra, Spain.
authors.forename: Rodrigo
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Gómez-Martínez
authors.affiliation: Departament de Biologia Cel⋅lular, Fisiologia i Immunologia, Facultat de Biociències, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Bellaterra, Spain.
authors.forename: Leonardo
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Barrios
authors.affiliation: Departament de Biologia Cel⋅lular, Fisiologia i Immunologia, Facultat de Biociències, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Bellaterra, Spain.
authors.forename: Elena
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Ibáñez
authors.affiliation: Departament de Ciència Animal i dels Aliments, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Bellaterra, Spain.
authors.forename: Xavier
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Such
authors.affiliation: Instituto de Microelectrónica de Barcelona IMB-CNM (CSIC), Bellaterra, Spain.
authors.forename: Marta
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Duch
authors.affiliation: Departament de Sanitat i d'Anatomia Animals, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Bellaterra, Spain.
authors.forename: Xavier
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Mora
authors.affiliation: Instituto de Microelectrónica de Barcelona IMB-CNM (CSIC), Bellaterra, Spain.
authors.forename: José Antonio
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Plaza
authors.affiliation: Departament de Biologia Cel⋅lular, Fisiologia i Immunologia, Facultat de Biociències, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Bellaterra, Spain. Electronic address: carme.nogues@uab.cat.
authors.forename: Carme
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Nogués
mesh_terms: D020101:Acrosome Reaction; D000818:Animals; D015925:Cryopreservation; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007315:Insemination, Artificial; D008297:Male; D011247:Pregnancy; D018873:Pregnancy Rate; D011817:Rabbits; D012825:Silicon; D013094:Spermatozoa
chemical_list: D012825:Silicon
keywords: assisted reproduction; barcodes; spermatozoa; traceability