Proceedings Article | 17 September 2014
KEYWORDS: Polymers, In vitro testing, Semiconductors, Biomedical optics, Computing systems, Luminescence, Quantum dots, Absorption, Medicine, Biological research
Objective: In recent years, semiconducting polymer dots (Pdots)have caught considerable attention for their outstanding optical characteristics in biomedical imaging applications. Not as semiconductor quantum dots, Pdots are composed of nonmetallic material and their biological effects remain unclear. In this work, we investigated the effects of a band new polymer dots on bioactivity of mouse sperm using a computer-aided sperm analysis system(CASA) and an in vitro fertilization (IVF) model. Methods: The semiconducting polymer dots used in this study is CN-PPV Pdots, which emits in the orange wavelength range with high brightness. Epididymal mouse sperm were collected from 7-8weeks old Balb/c mouse. Firstly, CN-PPV Pdots was added into the Human Tubal Fluid (HTF) media at various concentrations (0, 1, 10, 100 nmol/L respectively ), then sperm bioactivity and vitality were evaluated every 10 minutes. Secondly, the treated sperm were co-cultured with matured oocytes in HTF media, fertilization rate and oocytes development were recorded after 24 hours co-incubation. Results: Sperm viability in the control group (0 nmol/L) and experimental group (1, 10,100 nmol/L) were 57.20±4.51%, 58.17±4.81%, 55.50±4.52%, 46.26%±3.83%, respectively. Fertilization rate in different groups showed no obvious differences, control group (0 nmol/L) and experimental group (1, 10, 100 nmol/L) were 38.75±1.71%, 37.01±4.69%, 32.75±1.71%, 35.24±2.37%, respectively. Conclusion: Our data indicated that the CN-PPV Pdots had a very high biocompatibility on sperm in both the activation and the IVF process, even in extreme high Pdots concentration,the sperm bioactivity only got slight restrained. The effect of CN-PPV Pdots seems has no or little toxicity,and the long-term embryonic development has yet to be verified.
