116 IMPROVED SURVIVAL BY CRYOPRESERVING RHESUS MACAQUE (MACACA MULATTA) SPERMATOZOA WITH DIRECTIONAL FREEZING TECHNIQUE

A significant increase in nonhuman primate models of human diseases will be expected in the near future since the successes in production of genetically engineered rhesus monkey models of human diseases. Sperm banking can provide an effective way to preserve valuable genetic resources. Our objective was to (1) develop a protocol using directional freezing technique (DFT) for rhesus monkey spermatozoa cryopreservation, which allows precise control of the velocity and the morphology of the ice-front propagation by transferring the tubes loaded with 2 mL sperm samples at a controllable velocity through two separate chambers with controllable temperature settings, and (2) achieve survival rate that was higher than that achieved with conventional freezing technique (CFT), by which sperm samples were cryopreserved in 0.25 mL straws with liquid nitrogen vapor in a styrofoam box. Sperm motility, acrosomal integrity, and in vitro fertilization (IVF) assay were used to assess the function of frozen-thawed spermatozoa. Data were analyzed by ANOVA and Fisher protected LSD test. Experiment 1 was aimed at optimizing the cooling rate using DFT. Tubes were frozen using the multi-thermal gradient freezing device (MTG 516, Harmony CryoCareTM, IMT Ltd.) at fast (16°C/min), medium (12°C/min), and slow (7°C/min) cooling rates, which corresponded to the transferring velocities (2.5, 1.5, and 0.5 mm s-1, respectively). The results showed that spermatozoa frozen at fast and medium cooling rates showed significantly higher frozen-thawed motility than those frozen at slow cooling rate (61% and 59% v. 50%, P 0.05). The purposes of Experiment 2 were determined to examine if using DFT at the optimized cooling rate (12°C/min) can improve the cryo-survival of rhesus monkey spermatozoa compared with CFT. Our results showed that spermatozoa cryopreserved by using DFT achieved significantly higher frozen-thawed sperm motility that those cryopreserved by using CFT (64 v. 54%, P 0.05). The function of spermatozoa cryopreserved by using DFT was further evaluated by IVF. Females were treated with rhFSH twice-daily for 8 days after the onset of menses and following a treatment of hCG injection on Day 9. Cumulus-oocyte complexes were collected by laparoscopic follicular aspiration 32 h later. Of the inseminated oocytes, 79% were fertilized and 90 and 53% of the resulting zygotes developed into 2-cell and blastocysts, respectively. The fertilization rate was lower and the blastocyst rate was slightly higher than our previous report when fresh spermatozoa were used for IVF (94 and 52%, respectively). Our results indicate that spermatozoa of rhesus monkeys can be effectively cryopreserved using DFT in large volume. This finding provided a new and effective way for genetics preservation purposes in this important species.