Abstract
During freeze/thaw, cells are exposed to mechanical, thermal, chemical, and osmotic stresses, which cause loss of viability and function. Cryopreservation agents such as dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) are deployed to minimize freeze/thaw damage. However, there is a pressing need to eliminate DMSO from cryopreservation solutions due to its adverse effects. This is of the highest priority especially for cryopreservation of infusible/transplantable cell therapy products. In order to address this issue, we introduce reversible encapsulation in agarose hydrogels in the presence of the membrane-impermeable cryoprotectant, trehalose, as a viable, safe, and effective cryopreservation method. Our findings, which are supported by IR spectroscopy and differential scanning calorimetry analyses, demonstrate that encapsulation in 0.75% agarose hydrogels containing 10-20% trehalose inhibits mechanical damage induced by eutectic phase change, devitrification, and recrystallization, resulting in post-thaw viability comparable to the gold standard 10% DMSO.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 2226-2236 |
Number of pages | 11 |
Journal | ACS Applied Bio Materials |
Volume | 6 |
Issue number | 6 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Jun 19 2023 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2023 American Chemical Society.
Keywords
- DMSO
- cryopreservation
- devitrification
- encapsulation
- eutectic melting
- recrystallization
- trehalose