Cryopreservation of Animal and Human Cell Lines

Abstract

The long-term storage of human and animal cell lines is a relatively new branch of the science of cryopreservation of living organisms. The need to maintain the increasing numbers of cell lines, as they started to emerge from research laboratories from the mid-1900s, necessitated a radical approach to the problem. The realization that they could survive cryopreservation, and that a slow rate of cooling is essential for this survival, led to the eventual discovery of cryoprotectants. Subsequent development of mechanical freezers, which can accurately control the rate of cooling, now allows cells to be cryopreserved at their maximum viability. This chapter outlines the essentials steps for the successful preparation, freezing, and storage of cell lines.

Cryopreservation of Primary Mouse Neurons: The Benefit of Neurostore Cryoprotective Medium

“…In this study, we described a simple protocol to achieve long-term storage of primary mouse neurons. Cryopreservation is used as a standard method to store several mammalian cell lines (Grout et al, 1990 ; Morris, 2007 ). However, the majority of standard approaches involves tumor cell lines (Odell et al, 2010 ) or cells immortalized by genetic manipulation with oncogenes (Drayton and Peters, 2002 ).…”

Freshly frozen E18 rat cortical cells can generate functional neural networks after standard cryopreservation and thawing procedures

“…In mammalian cell culture, cryopreservation is used as a standard method to store and bank different cell types (Grout et al 1990 ; Morris 2007 ). Plenty of these cells are more or less robust tumor cell lines with mutations in genes that code for regulating cell cycle proteins (Odell et al 2010 ) or cells immortalized by genetic manipulation with oncogenes (for instance c-myc) (Drayton and Peters 2002 ; Gonos and Spandidos 1993 ; Stacey and MacDonald 2001 ).…”

“…Plenty of these cells are more or less robust tumor cell lines with mutations in genes that code for regulating cell cycle proteins (Odell et al 2010 ) or cells immortalized by genetic manipulation with oncogenes (for instance c-myc) (Drayton and Peters 2002 ; Gonos and Spandidos 1993 ; Stacey and MacDonald 2001 ). The post-thaw vitality of cryo-preserved cells often depends on slow cooling rates, fast defrosting, liquid nitrogen long-term-storage and the usage of cryo-protectants (Grout et al 1990 ; Morris 2007 ). Different theories are dealing with the physical backgrounds of the so called “cryo-sickness”.…”

Cryopreservation of mammalian embryos: Advancement of putting life on hold

“…After several decades of research efforts, the cryopreservation technology has advanced adequately to allow better management of biological resources, such as cell suspensions (Fuller, 2004;Morris, 2007) and model organisms like nematodes (Brenner, 1974), Drosophila (Mazur et al, 1992), zebrafish (Cardona-Costa and Garcia-Ximenez, 2007;Carmichael et al, 2009), Xenopus (Sargent and Mohun, 2005), and mouse (Whittingham et al, 1972;Wilmut, 1972). The emergence of vitrification has further advanced basic REVIEW V C 2010 Wiley-Liss, Inc.…”