Investigation of the Vitrification Ability of Mouse Embryos with Quartz Capillary (QC) Straws

The most frequent problems in current embryo freezing are formation of harmful ice crystals and toxicity of cryoprotectants. In slow freezing techniques although, the cryoprotectants can be used in a low concentration, ice crystals are formed and in rapid freezing process where ice crystals are avoided, this time toxicity of cryoprotectants deteriorates cells. New technological product quartz capillary straws have an ultra high temperature conductivity by which they avoid the necessity to use high concentrations of cryoprotectants and also prevent the formation of harmful ice crystals. The aim of this study was to investigate the use of quartz capillary straws for vitrification of mouse embryos. The quartz capillary straws have only been used to freeze murine embryonic stem cells and have not been tried in any multicellular embryo studies so far. In the study total 40 mouse embryos were frozen in six treatment groups with various concentration and combination of glycerol, ethylene glycol and trehalose. However, no live embryos were achieved after thawing and in vitro culture of embryos. In conclusion, high temperature conducting quartz capillary straws were observed to be inconvenient in freezing mouse blastocysts by vitrification with the type, concentration and combination of cryoprotectants used in this study.