The authors would like to acknowledge FAPESP (The State of São Paulo Research Foundation), for its financial support. “
“Crystalline salt hydrates, like hydrohalite (NaCl·2H2O), were recently discovered in cryopreserved biological samples and selleck inhibitor storage media by means of Raman

microspectroscopy [11] and confocal Raman microscopy (CRM) [10]. Hydrohalite can form under continuous precipitation during the cooling process and by eutectic crystallization depending on the medium composition. Up to now it is not clear, if hydrohalite formation is a strictly extracellular phenomenon or if it also forms in the cytoplasm of cells at subzero temperatures. An intracellular formation of a second crystalline phase in addition to ice could be a new aspect to understand cellular cryoinjury by both mechanical forces and chemical imbalances. From their Raman microspectroscopic study, Okotrub et al. [11] deduced a purely extracellular spatial distribution of hydrohalite around the cell membrane.

But since the lipid bilayer is only approximately 6 nm thick it is difficult to exactly determine the spatial position of small crystals at the membrane due to the diffraction limit of optical see more imaging techniques. Raman microscopy however has the potential to discriminate intra- and extra-cellular compounds by image analysis techniques as shown in this work. Raman scattering is a well understood optical phenomenon [13] and [15]and has been employed in a wide range of imaging techniques in cell biology, where it is used to distinguish compounds in cell samples or even cell types [3], [12] and [14]. Raman microscopy has recently been introduced to cryobiology [4] and has been shown to be a powerful

non-invasive tool to investigate the local chemical environment of cells. It is thus a suitable experimental technique to distinguish all solid phases formed in samples containing the most common compounds in cryopreservation, including phosphate buffered saline (PBS), intracellular PR-171 supplier salts, Me2SO, glycerol and biological material. The recent introduction of Raman microscopy to cryobiology [4] also had the first direct measurement of hydrohalite, although it was initially not identified or commented. This study showed Raman spectra with a characteristic unidentified peak at 3425 cm−1, which turns out to originate from hydrohalite. Hydrohalite formation in absence of cryoprotective agents can be used as a marker for eutectic crystallization, which empirically has been identified as a major cryoinjury mechanism [8]. In the present study we investigate a large set of L929 cells in PBS with and without Me2SO using CRM in order to determine whether hydrohalite formation is a strictly extracellular phenomenon or also occur intracellular under certain conditions.