Cryopreservation

Cryopreservation is time and cost saving method enabling preservation of valuable transgenic lines that are not currently in use.

Freezing of sperm or embryos is always recommended, as they constitute a ‘back-up’ in case of disease outbreak, fertility problems, spontaneous phenotype loss, etc. A complete cycle of cryopreserving a strain and reconstituting it from frozen material involves the same biological steps whether one uses embryos or sperm. In both cases, the production of fertilized embryos is the most expensive step. With embryo cryo, the fertilization step takes place before freezing, whereas with sperm cryo it is done after thawing.