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/ | `------------------------------------------------------------------' Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=8425