Cryoprotectants in ovarian vitrification: A review

The survival of cells after the difficult process of cryopreservation and warming is possible only by using appropriate methods of cryopreservation and the use of appropriate cryoprotective agents (CPAs). This article is a review of some of the research that has been done on cryoprotectants in ovarian vitrification.

To conduct this review study, first Pubmed, Scopus, and Embase databases, were researched, with the keywords of cryoprotectant and vitrification. In this study, in addition to introducing some common methods of ovarian cryopreservation, the combination of protective factors against intracellular, extracellular, polymeric, and natural cryopreservation was investigated.

For vitrification of ovarian tissue from intracellular types of CPAs such as ethylene glycol (EG), dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO), glycerol, propylene glycol, acetamide, and formamide and non-cellular CPAs such as serum proteins, sugar, Polymers are used. Each of these materials has a special efficiency and performance and is generally used in frozen solutions to minimize the damaging effects of the formation of ice crystals both at the intracellular and intra-tissue level.

It seems that more comprehensive research is needed on the best protective compound against cryopreservation so that in addition to maintaining the morphological parameters of the ovary, a variety of functional parameters of this tissue are also preserved after cryopreservation.