title: Preservation protocols for human adipose tissue-derived adult stem cells.
abstract: The development of simple but effective storage protocols for adult stem cells will greatly enhance their use and utility in tissue-engineering applications. There are three primary storage techniques, freezing (cryopreservation), drying (anhydrobiosis), and freeze drying (lyophilization), each with its own advantages and disadvantages. Cryopreservation has shown the most promise but is a fairly complex process, necessitating the use of chemicals called cryoprotective agents (CPAs), freezing equipment, and obviously, storage in liquid nitrogen. Preservation by desiccation is an alternative that attempts to reproduce a naturally occurring preservative technique, namely, the phenomenon of anhydrobiosis and requires the use of high (and possibly, toxic) concentration of CPAs as well as disaccharides (sugars). Lyophilization works by first cryopreserving (freezing) the material and then desiccating (drying) it by the process of sublimation or the conversion of ice (solid) to water vapor (gas phase). The purpose of this chapter is to present a general overview of these storage techniques and the optimal protocols/results obtained in our laboratory for long-term storage of adult stem cells using freezing storage and drying storage.
authors.affiliation: Bioengineering Laboratory, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, USA. devireddy@me.lsu.edu
authors.forename: Ram
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Devireddy
authors.forename: Sreedhar
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Thirumala
mesh_terms: D000273:Adipose Tissue / Q000166:cytology*; D000328:Adult; D053687:Adult Stem Cells / Q000166:cytology* / Q000187:drug effects; D002469:Cell Separation; D002470:Cell Survival / Q000187:drug effects; D018481:Convection; D015925:Cryopreservation / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*; D003451:Cryoprotective Agents / Q000494:pharmacology; D005434:Flow Cytometry; D005612:Freeze Drying; D005615:Freezing; D006801:Humans; D008858:Microscopy, Phase-Contrast; D009584:Nitrogen
chemical_list: D003451:Cryoprotective Agents; D009584:Nitrogen