Cryopreservation of zebrafish (danio rerio) blastomeres by controlled slow cooling
Authors: Lin, C., Zhang, T. and Rawson, D.M.
Journal: Cryo-Letters
Volume: 30
Issue: 2
Pages: 132-141
ISSN: 0143-2044
Abstract:Cryopreservation is now a common practice in the fields of aquaculture, conservation and biomedicine. One approach for maintaining the genetic diversity of both nuclear genome and mitochondrial DNA is cryopreservation of the blastomere. This study sets out to determine an optimum cryopreservation protocol for blastomeres isolated from 50% epiboly zebrafish embryos. Freezing was performed in 0.25 ml straws in a programmable freezer. The optimum slow cooling protocol is identified as 5°C/min, from 22 to -6°C, holding for 15 min, 0.3°C/min from -6 to -40°C, 2°C/min from -40 to -80°C, cells were held for 10 min at -80°C before plunging into the liquid nitrogen. Thawing was performed in a water bath at 28°C for 15 s followed by four step-wise removal of the cryoprotectant. Blastomeres had the highest survival level (70.2 ± 3.2%) when a mixture of 1.5 M dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) and 0.1 M sucrose were used as cryoprotectants. This was higher than that achieved with either of the sugar alternatives, trehalose (60.6 ± 3.1%) or glucose (43.1 ± 4.9%). In the present study, cryopreservation of 50% epiboly zebrafish blastomeres was studied for the first time using controlled slow cooling method. © CryoLetters.
Source: Scopus