Difference in volume of X- and Y-chromosome-bearing bovine sperm heads matches difference in DNA content

Abstract

Our findings indicate that volume can be used as a criterion to distinguish X- and Y-chromosome-bearing sperm, making development of a technique to sort X- and Y-chromosome-bearing sperm based on head volume theoretically possible. A strong advantage of such a technique over the existing technique based on DNA content would be that X- and Y-chromosome-bearing sperm cells could thus be sorted without subjecting them to any staining.