Liquid nitrogen preserves fruit fly embryos
Cell types and species have all been subjected to cryopreservation. Until now, however, there has not been a practical way to cryopreserve the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, which is vital to genetics research, and crucial to scientific breakthroughs that benefit human health.
To keep alive the increasing number of fruit flies that have unique genotypes to aid in these discoveries, 160000 different flies are transferred from laboratories and stock centres, resulting in contamination and genetic drift.
A University of Minnesota research team published a new study in Nature Communications that describes a method for cryopreserving fruit fly embryos. This method allows them to be recovered and grown into adult insects. This method optimizes embryo permeabilization and age, cryoprotectant agent composition, different phases of nitrogen (liquid vs. slush), and post-cryopreservation embryo culture methods.
Source:
https://phys.org/news/2021-04-method-viable-fruit-embryos-liquid.html
