2024-06-02 06:34:53
Freezing successfully protects natural matter from decay – however nonetheless causes harm. When the water inside turns to ice, the crystals break down the cells. That is why frozen meat or fruit will get a bit comfortable after thawing – however the greater downside is that it additionally occurs to organs or tissues frozen for transplant or analysis.
Within the new research, researchers at Fudan College in China experimented with totally different chemical compounds to see which of them may assist protect dwelling mind tissue throughout freezing. They first examined the promising chemical compounds on mind organoids, small lab-grown items of mind tissue that become various kinds of progenitor cells.
Organoids have been immersed in numerous chemical compounds, then frozen in liquid nitrogen for twenty-four hours. They have been then shortly thawed in heat water and examined to see how they functioned, grew, and confirmed indicators of cell harm over time. The chemical compounds that greatest protected the mini-brains superior to the subsequent stage, the place totally different mixtures have been examined in related freeze-thaw checks.
Lastly, the researchers recognized probably the most promising compound, which they named MEDY, based mostly on 4 predominant components: methylcellulose, ethylene glycol, DMSO, and Y27632. The workforce grew mini-brains of various ages (from 4 weeks to greater than three months), froze them in MEDY answer, thawed them, and noticed them for a number of extra weeks.
Intriguingly, MEDY-preserved mind organoids exhibited related patterns of progress and performance to people who had by no means been frozen. Extremely, one batch was frozen in MEDY for so long as 18 months – and was nonetheless equally protected against harm after thawing.
The workforce additionally froze samples of dwelling mind tissue taken from an individual with epilepsy – and located that MEDY protected them from harm. The method didn’t harm the mind’s mobile construction and even preserved the epileptic pathologies, which is necessary as a result of it means the samples might be frozen for later testing or evaluation with out harm from the freezing course of confounding the outcomes.
The brand new freezing expertise has probably the most speedy influence because it permits longer storage of mind organoids and samples for biomedical analysis, however might finally be utilized to complete brains and different tissues.
Analysis revealed in Cell Reviews Strategies.
Let’s take a look at „New Atlas“.
2024-06-02 06:34:53