Objective To investigate the sensitivity of the human sperm motility assay for detecting endotoxin in culture medium Materials & Methods Motile sperm were separated and exposed to different concentrations of endotoxin (0.5 ng/mL, 1 ng/mL, 10 ng/mL, 1 000 ng/mL, 10 000 ng/mL, and 50 000 ng/mL), and sperm motility was determined after incubation. Effects of endotoxin on sperm motility in media without albumin were also examined. In addition, at the same concentrations of endotoxin (0.5 ng/mL, 1 ng/mL, and 10 ng/mL), the sensitivity of the human sperm motility assay was compared to those of 1-cell and 2-cell mouse embryo bioassays.Results At levels of 0.5 ng/mL～1 000 ng/mL endotoxin in media with 2 mg/mL albumin, sperm did not show significant change in motility during 24 h of incubation when compared with the control (P>0.05). However, the sperm motility was significantly inhibited at endotoxin dosages of 10 000 and 50 000 ng/mL. In the absence of albumin supplementation, at endotoxin levels of 50 000 ng/mL, and 1 000 ng/mL, there was a marked decrease in sperm motility compared with the control after 2 h or 8 h of incubation, respectively (P