Mechanobiology of mammalian sperms

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To find the role of mechanical stimuli for fertilization in microfluidic environment that can mimic that of the oviduct, we investigated the relationship between interacellular Ca concentration ([Ca^<2+>]i) and shear-stress (SS) in motile sperms and discussed the molecular mechanism of the mechano-sensing. We found that the [Ca^<2+>]i in the head of a motile sperm is higher than that in the head of a non-motile sperm in flow. The directions of the heads of motile sperms that can handle Ca^<2+> were against the fluid flow direction significantly, while the distribution of the angles between non-motile sperms and flow direction is bimodal. When the fluid velocity increased, an increase in the fluorescent intensity was observed for a second. Slight fluorescent change was observed in the fluid velocity and SS change. Our proposal based on this study is that intracellular calcium concentration changes in the head might be responses of SS, but the intracellular calcium concentration changes by altering flow velocity would be slight and second-scale events.