Sexing Bovine Sperm

Abstract

Many methods of sexing sperm have been attempted, and there have been sufficient failures to cause much skepticism about sperm-sexing claims. However, recent work has clearly shown that one method is successful with various species, including cattle and horses. This procedure, flow cytometry/cell sorting, is 85 to 95% accurate. It was developed for sexing live sperm by Dr. Larry Johnson in the United States Department of Agriculture laboratory at Beltsville, Maryland, and patented by the U.S. government. Exclusive rights to the patent have been assigned to XY, Inc., a company in Colorado, for applications in non-human mammals. XY, Inc. has subsequently spent millions of dollars in further research, including development of faster sperm sorters. Much of this work was done in collaboration with Colorado State University.