An artificial cilia based micromixer for superior zebrafish sperm activation

Abstract

The objective of this study is to propose an artificial cilia based microfluidic device for efficient activation of zebrafish sperm by controlling the hydro-dynamics induced on the zebrafish sperm from the artificial cilia beating. The magnitude of fluid shear which has significant effect on the success of sperm activation was precisely controlled through this proposed device. A superior sperm activation of an absolute value of 70% with an average value of 65 % was achieved with a statistical significance (p-value < 0.05). The present design will advance the practice of the sperm activation significantly through the microfluidic platform.