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UNDERSTANDING COMPUTER ASSISTED SPERM ANALYSIS (CASA) OPTIONS: SORT II

18.02.2021

Written by Jennifer Ringwelski


With every advancement of Computer Assisted Sperm Analysis (CASA) systems, animal researchers and production specialist alike can glean more and more information about the sperm they are analyzing. While most production operations use CASA analyses to generate accurate and repeatable data for sperm concentration, motility, kinematics and even morphometry, as the technology advances, more information can be generated to better understand how sperm behave under certain handling conditions.  

Imagine being able to have real-time feedback about how sperm interact with various medias, freezing curves and other laboratory processes. Some of these queries can be resolved by using research software packages available on the Hamilton Thorne CASA systems such as SORT II and TRACK II.  

The SORT II option allow the operator to create individual, user-defined subpopulations of sperm defined from up to nine kinematic parameters and five morphometry-based parameters.  While most traditional CASA software packages can report not only the concentration, absolute count, kinematics, and morphometry of standard subpopulations such as the motile sperm, the progressively motile sperm and even the slow motile sperm cells, the SORT II software allows the user to report on user-defined, additional sperm subpopulations.  For example, users can define the parameters of “hyperactivated sperm” and analyze these sperm, comparatively or in addition to the total sperm population.  In other cases, researchers may desire to measure the motilities or kinematics of sperm which share similar morphometry parameters such as head size and shape. 

To learn more about the SORT II software package and how it can be used for further data interpretation, please visit with one of our global CASA experts or visit the IMV Technologies’ website. In a future blog entry, I will discuss TRACK II software and its use in animal semen evaluation. 


The views expressed in IMV Technologies' blog do not necessarily represent the views of the IMV Technologies Group but solely those of the blog post's author.

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