5 Thought-Provoking Facts About Cryopreservation
03.09.2019 - Birte Przybyl
1. Most living organisms don’t survive freezing. (1) During freezing, cells are damaged by what is known as cryoinjury.
2. Cryoinjury at fast cooling rates is caused by intracellular crystal formation. (1)
3. Lower cooling rates alter the osmotic potential of cells by changing the intra- and extracellular solutions. In addition to the osmotic stress, cryoinjury at lower cooling rates is also caused by mechanical damage that takes place when cells interact with external ice crystals. (1)
4. Inadequate cryopreservation may introduce variation between different batches or could even cause genetic and epigenetic modifications. (2)
5. Researchers found that cryopreservation and long-term storage affect cell viability and cause significant alterations to gene expression patterns when comparing fresh and cryopreserved PBMCs. (3)
1. Jang, Tae Hoon, et al. “Cryopreservation and its clinical applications.” Integrative medicine research 6.1 (2017): 12-18.
2. Hunt, Charles J. “Technical considerations in the freezing, low-temperature storage and thawing of stem cells for cell therapies.” Transfusion Medicine and Hemotherapy 46.3 (2019): 134-150
3. Yang, Jun, et al. “The effects of storage temperature on PBMC gene expression.” BMC immunobiology 17.1 (2016): 6