Abstract
Cryopreservation is one of the keystones in clinical infertility treatment. Especially vitrification has become a well-established and widely used routine procedure that allows important expansion of therapeutic strategies when IVF is used to treat infertility. Vitrification of human blastocysts allows us to maximize the potential for conception from any one in vitro fertilization cycle and prevents wastage of embryos. This goes even further toward to best utilize a patient’s supernumerary oocytes after retrieval, maximizing the use of embryos from a single stimulation cycle. The technology can even be used to eliminate fresh embryo transfers for reasons of convenience, uterine receptivity, fertility preservation, preimplantation genetic diagnosis, or emergency management. In this chapter, the application of vitrification technology for cryopreserving human blastocyst will be revealed through step-by-step protocols. The results that are presented using the described protocols underscore the robustness of the vitrification technology for embryo cryopreservation.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Fahy GM, MacFarlane DR, Angell CA, Meryman HT (1984) Vitrification as an approach to cryopreservation. Cryobiology 21:407–426
Fahy GM (1986) Vitrification: a new approach to organ cryopreservation. In: Merryman HT (ed) Transplantation: approaches to graft rejection. Alan R Liss, New York, pp 305–335
Seki S, Mazur P (2009) The dominance of warming rate over cooling rate in the survival of mouse oocytes subjected to a vitrification procedure. Cryobiology 59:75–82
Mazur P, Seki S (2011) Survival of mouse oocytes after being cooled in a vitrification solution to −196°C at 95° to 70,000°C/min and warmed at 610° to 118,000°C/min: a new paradigm for cryopreservation by vitrification. Cryobiology 62:1–7
Rall WF, Fahy GM (1985) Ice-free cryopreservation of mouse embryos at −196°C by vitrification. Nature 313:573–575
Ali J, Shelton JN (1993) Vitrification of preimplantation stages of mouse embryos. J Reprod Fertil 98:459–465
Vajta G, Holm P, Kuwayama M, Booth PJ, Jacobsen H, Greve T, Callesen H (1998) Open pulled straws (OPS) vitrification: a new way to reduce cryoinjuries of bovine ova and embryos. Mol Reprod Dev 51:53–58
Kuleshova L, Gianaroli L, Magli C, Ferraretti A, Trounson A (1999) Birth following vitrification of a small number of human oocytes: case report. Hum Reprod 14:3077–3079
Yoon TK, Chung HM, Lim JM, Han SY, Ko JJ, Cha KY (2000) Pregnancy and delivery of healthy infants developed from vitrified oocytes in a stimulated in vitro fertilization-embryo transfer program. Fertil Steril 74:180–181
Walker DL, Tummon IS, Hammitt DG, Session DR, Dumesic DA, Thornhill AR (2004) Vitrification versus programmable rate freezing of late stage murine embryos: a randomized comparison prior to application in clinical IVF. Reprod Biomed Online 8:558–568
Takahashi K, Mukaida T, Goto T, Oka C (2005) Perinatal outcome of blastocyst transfer with vitrification using cryoloop: a 4-year follow-up study. Fertil Steril 84:88–92
Liebermann J, Tucker MJ (2006) Comparison of vitrification versus conventional cryopreservation of day 5 and day 6 blastocysts during clinical application. Fert Steril 86:20–26
Liebermann J (2009) Vitrification of human blastocysts: an update. Reprod Biomed Online 19(Suppl 4):105–114
Liebermann J (2011) More than six years of blastocyst vitrification—what is the verdict? US Obstet Gynecol 5:14–17
Liebermann J, Tucker MJ (2002) Effect of carrier system on the yield of human oocytes and embryos as assessed by survival and developmental potential after vitrification. Reproduction 124:483–489
Liebermann J, Nawroth F, Isachenko V, Isachenko E, Rahimi G, Tucker MJ (2002) Potential importance of vitrification in reproductive medicine. Biol Reprod 67:1671–1680
Liebermann J, Dietl J, Vanderzwalmen P, Tucker MJ (2003) Recent developments in human oocyte, embryo and blastocyst vitrification: where are we now? Reprod Biomed Online 7:623–633
Acknowledgments
The author wants to thank the Physicians at the Fertility Centers of Illinois (FCI) and the Embryologists at the FCI IVF Laboratory River North (Sara Sanchez-Julias, BS; Rebecca Brohammer, BS; Marianna Pantos, MS; Laura Baranyi, BS; Ivana Elzy, BS; Lyn Claussen, MS; Cynthia Macias, BS; Alina Diamond, BS; Janna Schwab, MS; Emily Spolarich, BS; and Jennifer Santiago, BS, for their invaluable contributions and support in pushing vitrification to become our standard protocol for cryopreservation of human oocytes and blastocysts within our program since 2004.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature
About this protocol
Cite this protocol
Liebermann, J. (2021). Vitrification: A Simple and Successful Method for Cryostorage of Human Blastocysts. In: Wolkers, W.F., Oldenhof, H. (eds) Cryopreservation and Freeze-Drying Protocols. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 2180. Humana, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-0783-1_24
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-0783-1_24
Published:
Publisher Name: Humana, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-0716-0782-4
Online ISBN: 978-1-0716-0783-1
eBook Packages: Springer Protocols