Motility enhancement of human spermatozoa using electrical stimulation in the nano-Ampere range with enzymatic biofuel cells
Fig 6
Recovery of motility of asthenozoospermatozoa and the immotile spermatozoa following electrical stimulation in the nano-Ampere range induced by EBFC.
(A) The bar graph shows the electrically stimulated asthenozoospermatozoa motility ratios depending on the culture times which range from 0 h to 3 h. The open bar is the control group, the gray bar is the 112 nA/cm2 stimulation, and the black bar is the 250 nA/cm2 stimulation group. (B) The line graph presents the VSL (purple), VAP (green), and VCL (red) values of the electrically stimulated human asthenozoospermatozoa. (C) The moving distance per second of the control and electrical stimulated asthenozoospermatozoa sample. Control: control group, 250nA: 250 nA/cm2 stimulation group. The electrical stimulation of the EBFC to the asthenozoospermatozoa enhanced the sperm’s motility after 2 h and without a straight movement but no increased the distance moved by the sperm compared with the control groups. (D) Up side two images at high magnification at the different fields show immotile sperm morphology with neck and tail defects. And down side two images of strict morphology analysis clearly exhibits the neck and tail defect of immotile spermatozoa. Therefore, the defected immotile sperm evokes no responses following electrical stimulation. All data are means ± SEM of measurements in triplicate. Significant differences are indicated by asterisks (* p < 0.05 against control).