X-Message-Number: 16079 Date: Fri, 20 Apr 2001 09:23:20 -0700 (PDT) From: Doug Skrecky <> Subject: Dried-out human cells come back to life Previous work has indicated that only the fragility of cellular membranes prevents most cells from surviving desiccation. The current results with glycan comfirm this. The seemingly conflicting results with trehalose exhibit a dose/response effect. Trehalose must be on both sides of the plasma membrane to be effective, and the concentration must be above a threshold. Sucrose works as well. However both trehalose and glycan have too low a permeability towards tissue, to be useful in organ preservation. Perhaps if the glycan could be reduced to it's components in order to penetrate tissue, and then reassembled it might prove to be useful. A small step in the direction of self-assembling anhydroprotectants has already been taken by preserving cells with trehalose/borate. (Cryobiology 41: 17-24 2000) These two items react to increase anhydroprotection. If something similar could be engineered with a permeating solute like glycerol then longterm room temperature organ storage might quickly become a reality. Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=16079