Development of A Novel Serum-free Cryopreservative Solution

Abstract

There has been a rapid development of cell therapy or regenerative medicine and of the production of bio-medicine with mammalian cell cultures. The cryopreservation of cells used for therapy is vitally important for a stable and continuous supply. Currently, fetal bovine serum (FBS) supplemented with 5- 10 % DMSO is predominantly used as a cryopreservative, but because bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) or other infections are of serious concern, serum-free cryopreservative solutions are preferable. In this study, we found that the silk protein sericin was effective for the cryopreservation of mammalian cells and successively constructed a novel serum-free cryopreservative solution comprising 1 % sericin, 0.5 % maltose, 0.3 % proline, 0.3 % glutamine and 10 % DMSO in PBS. The cells cryopreserved in this solution survived as well as in the conventional FBS supplemented with DMSO, and survival was better than in two commercially available solutions.