Recent
findings have reported the reason why some living beings
are able to withstand the huge thermal amplitudes between winter and
summer in their natural habitats. They are able to produce metabolites
decreasing deeply the crystallization temperature of water, avoiding
cell disrupture due to the presence of ice crystals and overcoming
osmotic effects. In vitro, the possibility to cool living cells and
tissues to cryogenic temperatures in the absence of ice can be achieved
through a vitrification process. Vitrification has been suggested
as an alternative approach to cryopreservation and could hereafter
follow an interesting biomimetic perspective. The metabolites produced
by these animals are mostly sugars, organic acids, choline derivatives,
or urea. When combined at a particular composition, these compounds
form a new liquid phase which has been defined as Natural Deep Eutectic
Solvents (NADES). In this review, we relate the findings of different
areas of knowledge from evolutive biology, cryobiology, and thermodynamics
and give a perspective to the potential of NADES in the development
of new cryoprotective agents.
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