Table of Contents
Are BioLife’s biopreservation media products really better than commercial and home-brew alternatives?
Which cells, tissues, and organs have been preserved with BioLife’s biopreservation media products?
What roles do apoptosis and necrosis play in biopreservation?
What are the components in CryoStor and HypoThermosol?
What are the best methods to assess post-preservation viability and recovery?
Why does BioLife offer three variants of CryoStor?
How do I use HypoThermosol and CryoStor?
How will better biopreservation improve my processes?
How can I order BioLife products?
Are BioLife’s biopreservation media products really better than commercial and home-brew alternatives?
A growing body of independently published, peer-reviewed journal articles and internal research reports have demonstrated significant improvement in shelf life/stability extension and post-preservation viability in a broad range of biologics through the use of our HypoThermosol and CryoStor biopreservation media products.
Many traditional commercial and home-brew biopreservation formulations were designed nearly 50 years ago, without the understanding and discoveries of modern day molecular biology related to preservation–induced stress pathways. These alternative formulations have remained relatively unchanged, and tend to focus solely on the incorporation of DMSO for ice management, in a non-optimized carrier solution which often includes serum and protein components. Comparative biopreservation efficacy data can be found in our Evidence Section.
See:
• Clinical Results: CryoStor versus Alternative Cryopreservation Media
• Clinical Results: HypoThermosol versus Alternative Hypothermic Storage
Which cells, tissues, and organs have been preserved with BioLife’s biopreservation media products?
The following is a brief list of biologics that have been successfully preserved under hypothermic storage or cryopreservation conditions with our products. If you don’t see your cell or tissue type listed, please contact us to learn how we can improve your biopreservation outcomes.
Partial List of Biologics Preserved with BioLife Products |
|
| Amniotic epithelial cells Avulsed teeth Blood vessels Bone marrow Caco-2 Cancer stem cells Cardiomyocytes CHO cells Chondrocytes Cord blood stem cells Cornea Corneal epithelial cells Dendritic cells Dental pulp stem cells Dermal papilla cells Endometrial repair cells Endothelial cells Glial cells HEK Hepatocytes hESC |
Hybridomas iPSC islet cells Liver tissue Lymphocytes (EBV transformed, T, T-reg) McCoy cells MDCK Mesenchymal stem cells Neuronal cells Pancreatic tissue PBMC PC-3 Placental stem cells Progenitor cells Red blood cells Renal cells Skeletal myoblasts Smooth muscle cells Synthetic skin Tissue fibroblasts Umbilical cord tissue stem cells |
What roles do apoptosis and necrosis play in biopreservation?
Our technology platform was founded on our novel understanding of low temperature biology and the initiation of necrosis and apoptosis in response to temperature change. During the course of our research we noted that following hypothermic preservation, cells would appear viable on the first day upon return to normothermic conditions, but over a several day period, viability would decrease incrementally. This phenomenon, labeled preservation-induced, delayed-onset cell death, exhibits a protracted “death slide,” compared to naturally occurring gene-regulated apoptosis, which is evident within hours not days. Our research and discoveries of the cellular-molecular responses to exposure to hypothermic conditions (refrigerated and freezing) enabled the formulation of optimized biopreservation media products that significantly reduce the level of preservation-induced apoptosis and necrosis.
Many traditional commercial and home-brew preservation formulations were designed nearly 50 years ago, without the understanding and discoveries of modern day molecular biology related to biopreservation–induced stress pathways.These alternative formulations have remained relatively unchanged, and tend to focus solely on the incorporation of DMSO for ice management, in a non-optimized carrier solution that often includes serum and protein components. Comparative preservation efficacy data can be found here:
See:
• Clinical Results: CryoStor versus Alternative Cryopreservation Media
• Clinical Results: HypoThermosol versus Alternative Hypothermic Storage
What are the components in CryoStor and HypoThermosol?
The specific formulations of BioLife’s biopreservation media products are company trade secrets. However, we can generally describe the products as pre-formulated aqueous, serum-free, protein-free balanced electrolyte solutions that include various sugars, salts, and other components that provide pH buffering, oncotic/osmotic support, free radical scavenging, and energy substrates. Of course, our CryoStor products also contain DMSO in various concentrations.
Specific to ionic concentrations, our biopreservation media products are tuned and optimized to balance the intracellular state at low temperatures, in stark contrast to extracellular or isotonic media formulations.
Finally, we only use USP/multi-compendial or highest available grade components including water for injection (WFI) quality water. For clinical customers, Type II FDA Master Files for our products are available for cross-referencing in regulatory marketing applications. The Master Files include complete formulary information for our products.
What are the best methods to assess post-preservation viability and recovery?
As noted above, it is important to remember that preservation-induced apoptosis is a drawn out “death-slide” occurring over the course of many hours to days. When measuring the efficacy of any biopreservation media, it is critical that viability and recovery assays be performed over the course of several days, not just immediately post-storage. For more information on our best practices including assay type selection and timing, please review “Curse You, Trypan Blue!” otherwise known as, “What is Your Viability Assay Really Saying?”
Why does BioLife offer three variants of CryoStor?
All serum-free, protein-free CryoStor freeze media products have proven to be very effective in cryopreserving various cell systems by enabling greater cell recovery (number and viability) following thawing. CS2, CS5, and CS10 are pre-formulated with 2%, 5%, and 10% DMSO, respectively. CryoStor CS5 is the most widely utilized variant. However, CryoStor CS10 and CS2 are also widely adopted, and customer usage is typically dictated by cell system tolerance to DMSO balanced against acceptable levels of post-preservation recovery.
How do I use HypoThermosol and CryoStor?
It’s important to remember all HypoThermosol and CryoStor products are pre-formulated, ready-to-use, and require no mixing or other added components. Our products are designed to fit directly into most existing protocols. The product Instructions For Use (IFU) documents contain sample biopreservation protocol steps, which you can find on the hearing HypoThermosol and CryoStor product pages under “Resource Links.”
How will better biopreservation improve my processes?
Optimizing your biopreservation processes can have significant positive impacts on the cost, yield, shelf life/stability and quality of your overall research or clinical development projects. Poor system tuning, via the use of non-optimized processes and biopreservation media formulations, results in cumulative detrimental effects to every quality characteristic you may consider critical for success. Along the continuum of acquisition of source material, through isolating/deriving intermediate material, to delivery of a final packaged product to the clinic, biopreservation system optimization can offer dramatic improvement, in some cases, perhaps making an impact that enables successful commercialization!
How can I order BioLife products?
Click here to fill out our online form or download and fax us your order.
