Transmembrane Water Transport and Intracellular Ice Formation of Human Umbilical Vein Endothelial Cells During Freezing

Yu Huang; Ying Dong; Brian Gao; Ruidong Ma; Frank Liu Gao; Lingxiao Shen

doi:10.1089/bio.2022.0111

Transmembrane Water Transport and Intracellular Ice Formation of Human Umbilical Vein Endothelial Cells During Freezing

Biopreserv Biobank. 2022 Aug;20(4):311-316. doi: 10.1089/bio.2022.0111.

Authors

Yu Huang^{1

2}, Ying Dong³, Brian Gao⁴, Ruidong Ma⁵, Frank Liu Gao⁶, Lingxiao Shen²

Affiliations

¹ School of Medical Imaging, Bengbu Medical College, Bengbu, China.
² Department of Electronic Engineering and Information Science, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China.
³ Division of Life Sciences and Medicine, The First Affiliated Hospital of USTC, University of Science and Technology of China (USTC), Hefei, China.
⁴ The College of Medicine, California Northstate University, Elk Grove, California, USA.
⁵ Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.
⁶ School of Public Affairs, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China.

PMID: 35984940
DOI: 10.1089/bio.2022.0111

Abstract

Long-term cryopreservation of human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) is important and beneficial for a variety of biomedical research and applications. In this study, we investigated HUVEC's cryobiological characteristics and parameters that are indispensable for predicting and determining an optimal cooling rate to prevent lethal intracellular ice formation (IIF) and severe cell dehydration during the cryopreservation processes. The parameters include cell membrane hydraulic conductivity (i.e., cell membrane water permeability), L_p, cell membrane water permeability activation energy, E_lp, and osmotically inactive volume of a cell V_b. Cryomicroscopy was used to study the IIF phenomena and cell volume excursion at various cooling rates, 1, 10, and 20°C/min, respectively, based on which the cryobiological parameters were determined using biophysical and mathematical models. Results from this research work laid an important cryobiological foundation for the optimization of HUVEC's cryopreservation conditions.

Keywords: cell severe dehydration; cryobiology; cryopreservation; human umbilical vein endothelial cells; intracellular ice formation.

MeSH terms

Biological Transport / physiology
Cell Membrane Permeability / physiology
Cryopreservation
Dehydration
Freezing*
Human Umbilical Vein Endothelial Cells* / metabolism
Humans
Ice
Water* / metabolism

Substances

Ice
Water