Recently, in vitro gene preservation has gained ground thanks to its lower cost and higher stability compared to in vivo techniques. One of the methods that can preserve female-specific W chromosome-linked genes is primordial germ cell (PGC) freezing. PGCs can be isolated from Hamburger-Hamilton stage 14-16 embryos via blood sampling. In our experiment, we used two newly established Black Transylvanian naked neck chicken cell lines and four cell lines from our gene bank. We compared two different freezing media (FAM1 and FAM2) in this study. The cell number and viability of the PGCs were measured before freezing (BF) and after thawing on Day 0, Day 1, and Day 7 of cultivation. We analyzed the germ cell-specific chicken vasa homologue (CVH) expression profile in PGCs using RT-qPCR. We found that on Day 0, immediately after thawing, the cell number in cell lines frozen with the FAM2 medium was significantly higher than in the FAM1-treated ones. On Day 1 and Day 7, the cell number and viability were also higher in most cell lines frozen with FAM2, but the difference was insignificant. The freezing also affected the chicken vasa homologue gene expression in male lines treated with both freezing media.
Keywords: PGC; RNA expression; chicken; cryopreservation; freezing medium.