X-Message-Number: 8425
Date: Tue, 29 Jul 1997 09:27:05 -0700
From: "Joseph J. Strout" <>
Subject: Re: adonitol

Yvan Bozzonetti wrote in Cryomsg #8242:

>>  One cryoprotectant that shows promise here is adonitol, which
>>permeates cell membranes over 30 times as quickly as sorbitol
>>yet still melts at a warm and toasty 102 C. For those concerned about
>>safety or expense of cryonic storage, adonitol might be close to being the
>>optimal choice of cryoprotectant for use in conjunction with dry ice
>>storage.
>
>This is very interesting: May we have the solution at hand without costly
>molecular design? I have the possibility to work at dry ice temperature. If
>someone can suggest a source for adonitol it could be interesting to see
>how it behave.

I'd also be willing to give it a whirl, but I imagine an immediate
difficulty, namely, that it melts only at a warm and toasty 102C!  To keep
this stuff in liquid form long enough to soak in, we'd basically have to
cook our tissue, just like boiling an egg.  Cooking *is* a form of
fixation, but not one generally considered good for maintaining tissue
quality.

Better would be something that solidifies between -20 and 20 C, yet
permeates the cell membrane.  In fact, something that freezes around 0 C
without expanding would be ideal.

,------------------------------------------------------------------.
|    Joseph J. Strout           Department of Neuroscience, UCSD   |
|               http://www-acs.ucsd.edu/~jstrout/  |
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