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The good news is that scientists will never have to worry about their vials of mouse semen rupturing during transport again.
Japanese researchers have developed a way to freeze-dry rodent ejaculate between thin sheets of plastic and stick it on postcards, with the samples surviving long journeys to produce healthy puppies.
The Yamanashi University team was so thrilled with their success that one scientist even sent another a “Happy New Year” card with mouse sperm attached as a gift.
“Until now, storing or sending mouse semen to other researchers has required a freezing environment such as liquid nitrogen or dry ice,” Daiyu Ito, lead author of an article in iScience.
Ito is a doctoral student in the laboratory of Professor Teruhiko Wakayama, who had previously been the first team to successfully freeze-dry mammalian sperm and send it to the International Space Station to study the effects of cosmic radiation.
The semen was originally intended to be stored in tiny glass bottles which shattered easily, rendering the sample unusable.
With such pitfalls in mind, the team set to work on a new method of conservation.
The plastic sheets turned out to be a good way to seal semen, but they were also toxic to DNA, and scientists realized they needed another material to get inside.
After testing various types of paper, they found that weighing paper had the highest rate of offspring production.
Using this technique, they were able to produce a “sperm book” made up of postcards with different samples, “a completely new concept that no one had ever thought of before,” Ito said.
“Almost every day, new strains of genetically modified mice are created in many laboratories around the world. Therefore, (with) this method, a thousand strains of mice can be stored and easily managed in this one low cost book. “, he added.
Although the book was stored in a freezer at -30 degrees Celsius (-22 degrees Fahrenheit), the team found that the samples survived trips of up to three days at room temperature when the postcards were sent. by post – for example between Yamanashi University and the University of Tokyo.
Wakayama, the lead author of the article, has previously said he has developed freeze-dried mouse sperm for a future in which humans migrate to other planets and must conserve Earth’s genetic resources, including our own kind.
“It is now recognized that genetic resources are an asset for the future of humanity,” he said in a statement.
“The method of preserving plastic sheets in this study will be the most suitable method for the safe preservation of a large amount of valuable genetic resources due to the resistance to breakage and less space required for it. storage.”
The team is currently working on a method to freeze dried mammalian eggs. “We think we can do it,” Ito told AFP.
© 2021 AFP
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