Background: Cryopreservation is the best way for long-term preservation of plant germplasm resources. The preliminary studies found that ROS-induced oxidative stress and ice-induced membrane damage are the fundamental causes of cell death in cryopreserved samples. How to improve plant cryopreservation survival rate is an important scientific issue in the cryobiology field.Results: This study found that the survival rate was significantly improved by adding single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) to plant vitrification solution (PVS) in cryopreservation of Agapanthus praecox embryogenic callus (EC), and analyzed the oxidative response of cells during the control and SWCNTs-added cryopreservation protocol. The SWCNTs entered EC at the step of dehydration, and mainly located around the cell wall and in the vesicles, and most of SWCNTs moved out of EC during dilution step. Combined with the physiological and quantitative gene expression results, SWCNTs affect ROS signal transduction and the antioxidant system in plant cryopreservation. The EC treated with SWCNTs exhibited higher antioxidant levels, including POD, CAT and GSH than the control group EC. EC mainly depended on AsA-GSH and GPX cycle to scavenge H2O2 in the control cryopreservation, but depended on CAT in the SWCNTs-added cryopreservation which lead to low levels of H2O2 and MDA. Elevated antioxidant status in dehydration by addition of SWCNTs enhanced cells resistance to cryoinjury. The ROS signals of EC were balanced and stable in the SWCNTs-added cryopreservation.Conclusions: SWCNTs regulated the oxidative stress response of EC during cryopreservation, and controlled cell oxidative damage via the maintenance of ROS homeostasis to achieve high survival rate after cryopreservation. This study is the first time to systematically describe the role of carbon nanomaterials in the regulation of plant oxidative stress response, and provided a novel insight into cell stress response mechanisms in cryopreservation.