INVESTIGADORES
CESARI Andreina
artículos
Título:
Objective evaluation of ram and buck sperm motility by using novel sperm tracker software
Autor/es:
BUCHELLY IMBACHÍ, FRANCISCO; ZALAZAR, LUCIA; PASTORE, JUAN IGNACIO; GRECO, MICAELA BELÉN; INIESTA CUERDA, MARIA; GARDE, JOSE JULIAN; SOLER, A.J.; BALLARIN, VIRGINIA; CESARI, ANDREINA
Revista:
REPRODUCTION
Editorial:
BIOSCIENTIFICA LTD
Referencias:
Lugar: Bristol; Año: 2018
ISSN:
1470-1626
Resumen:
This work offers researchers the first version of an open-source sperm tracker software (Sperm Motility Tracker V1.0) containing a novel suit of algorithms to analyze sperm motility using the ram sperm model. The computer-assisted semen analysis (CASA) is used in several publications with increasing trend worldwide in the last years, showing the importance of objective methodologies to evaluate semen quality. However, commercial systems are costly and versatility is constrained. In the proposed method segmentation is applied and the tracking stage is performed by using individual Kalman filters and a simplified occlusion handling method. The tracking performance in terms of precision (number of true tracks) and the percentage of fragmented paths were manually validated by three experts and compared with the performance of a commercial motility analyzer (Microptic?s SCA). The precision obtained with our Sperm Motility Tracker was higher than the one obtained with a commercial software at the current acquisition frame rate of 25 fps (p=0.0005), concomitantly with a lower percentage of fragmentized tracks (p=0.0004). Moreover, our tracker was able to detect trajectories that were unseen by SCA. Kinetic values obtained by using both methods were contrasted. The differences found were explained on the basis of the better performance of our sperm tracker to report speed parameters for very fast motile sperm. In order to standardize results, some acquisition conditions are suggested. This open-source sperm tracker software has a good plasticity allowing researchers to upgrade according requirements and to apply the tool for sperm from a variety of species.