Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, Front Royal, VA, 22630, United States of America.
Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology, 46-007 Lilipuna Rd, Kaneohe, HI, 96744, United States of America.
Sci Rep. 2018 Oct 24;8(1):15714. doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-34035-0.
Climate change has increased the incidence of coral bleaching events, resulting in the loss of ecosystem function and biodiversity on reefs around the world. As reef degradation accelerates, the need for innovative restoration tools has become acute. Despite past successes with ultra-low temperature storage of coral sperm to conserve genetic diversity, cryopreservation of larvae has remained elusive due to their large volume, membrane complexity, and sensitivity to chilling injury. Here we show for the first time that coral larvae can survive cryopreservation and resume swimming after warming. Vitrification in a 3.5 M cryoprotectant solution (10% v/v propylene glycol, 5% v/v dimethyl sulfoxide, and 1 M trehalose in phosphate buffered saline) followed by warming at a rate of approximately 4,500,000 °C/min with an infrared laser resulted in up to 43% survival of Fungia scutaria larvae on day 2 post-fertilization. Surviving larvae swam and continued to develop for at least 12 hours after laser-warming. This technology will enable biobanking of coral larvae to secure biodiversity, and, if managed in a high-throughput manner where millions of larvae in a species are frozen at one time, could become an invaluable research and conservation tool to help restore and diversify wild reef habitats.
气候变化增加了珊瑚白化事件的发生率，导致世界各地珊瑚礁的生态系统功能和生物多样性丧失。随着珊瑚礁的退化加速，对创新的恢复工具的需求变得迫切。尽管过去在低温保存珊瑚精子以保存遗传多样性方面取得了成功，但由于幼虫体积大、膜结构复杂以及对冷却损伤敏感，冷冻保存幼虫仍然难以实现。在这里，我们首次表明珊瑚幼虫可以在冷冻保存后存活并在升温后恢复游动。在 3.5M 的冷冻保护剂溶液（10%v/v 丙二醇、5%v/v 二甲基亚砜和 1M 海藻糖在磷酸盐缓冲盐水中）中进行玻璃化，然后用红外激光以大约 4,500,000°C/min 的速率升温，结果在受精后第 2 天，石珊瑚幼虫的存活率高达 43%。存活的幼虫在激光加热后游动并继续发育至少 12 小时。这项技术将使珊瑚幼虫的生物库得以安全保存生物多样性，如果以高通量方式管理，即在一次冷冻一个物种的数百万个幼虫，它将成为一种非常宝贵的研究和保护工具，有助于恢复和多样化野生珊瑚礁栖息地。
