Testing human sperm chemotaxis: how to detect biased motion in population assays

Research output: Contribution to journalResearch articleContributedpeer-review

Contributors

  • Leah Armon - , Weizmann Institute of Science (Author)
  • S Roy Caplan - , Weizmann Institute of Science (Author)
  • Michael Eisenbach - , Weizmann Institute of Science (Author)
  • Benjamin M Friedrich - , Weizmann Institute of Science (Author)

Abstract

Biased motion of motile cells in a concentration gradient of a chemoattractant is frequently studied on the population level. This approach has been particularly employed in human sperm chemotactic assays, where the fraction of responsive cells is low and detection of biased motion depends on subtle differences. In these assays, statistical measures such as population odds ratios of swimming directions can be employed to infer chemotactic performance. Here, we report on an improved method to assess statistical significance of experimentally determined odds ratios and discuss the strong impact of data correlations that arise from the directional persistence of sperm swimming.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)e32909
JournalPloS one
Volume7
Issue number3
Publication statusPublished - 2012
Peer-reviewedYes
Externally publishedYes

External IDs

Scopus 84857842661