view - Department of Reproduction, Obstetrics and Herd Health

CHAPTER 3.2
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In addition, it has been demonstrated that chamber depth influences human sperm motility
parameters (Le Lannou et al., 1992). Also in veterinary medicine, the effect of the chamber type has
been analyzed for a few chambers (Contri et al., 2010; Iguer-ouada and Verstegen, 2001; Lenz et al.,
2011). The Makler chamber was associated with higher motility outcomes compared to the Leja and
Cell-vu chambers (Contri et al., 2010; Iguer-ouada and Verstegen, 2001; Lenz et al., 2011), but was
comparable to the WHO slide (Lenz et al., 2011). In literature, the depth of the sperm suspension for
motility analysis is variable and not seldom left unmentioned which is in sharp contrast to human
andrology where the WHO laboratory manual for the examination and processing of human semen
(WHO, 2010) clearly defines how a slide for sperm motility analysis should be prepared. This is
particularly important since it is known that a chamber depth of less than 20 µm constrains the
rotational movement of human spermatozoa (Kraemer et al., 1998; Le Lannou et al., 1992). Ishijima
and co-workers (1986) showed that the flagellar beating of a spermatozoa was three dimensional
rather than planar and results in a sperm rotation on a helical trajectory. As such, a shallow chamber
of 10 µm depth prevents the development of highly curved flagellar beats; as such the trajectory
remains straight and the rate of progressive hyperactivated motions increases (Le Lannou et al.,
1992). The differences in width of sperm heads between human and animal species (Table 1) might
affect motion characteristics to a different extent.
Table 1. Dimensions of the sperm head of different mammalian species.
Human 1
Equine 2
Bovine 3
Canine 4
Porcine 5
Length (µm) 4.1 5.49 8.67 6.65 8.12
Width (µm) 2.8 2.65 4.55 3.88 4.07
1 WHO laboratory manual for the examination and processing of human semen, 2010
2 Gravance et al., 1996
3 Gravance et al., 2009
4 Rijsselaere et al., 2004
5 García-Herreros et al., 2007
Literature on equine semen reports a wide variety both in CASA motility settings (Loomis
and Graham, 2008; Ortega-Ferrusola et al., 2009; Vidament et al., 2009; Waite et al.,2008) as well as
in the use of different chambers in combination with CASA systems. The chambers most frequently
used are a 20 µm deep Leja chamber (Hoogewijs et al., 2010; Len et al., 2010; Ortega-Ferrusola et al.,
2009; Waite et al., 2008), the 20 µm deep Cell-vu chamber (Almeida and Ball, 2005; Glazar et al.,
2009; Spizziri et al., 2010) and the 10 µm deep Makler chamber (Johannisson et al., 2009; Kavak et
al., 2003). These chambers are frequently loaded with a different volume, and sometimes only the