Biopsy vitrification: New tool for endometrial tissue cryopreservation for research applications

Abstract

Patient-derived endometrial biopsies serve as a crucial source for molecular studies, highlighting the necessity for tissue cryopreservation methods that preserve cell viability and tissue morphology with minimal to no impact. The passive slow freezing (PSF) protocol has demonstrated efficacy for cryopreserving endometrial biopsies, allowing for the subsequent isolation of viable epithelial and stromal cells. Vitrification (VT) enables the avoidance of ice crystal formation and could therefore potentially prevent mechanical injury to tissues. In this study, PSF and VT techniques were applied to endometrial biopsies, and the effects of cryopreservation on tissue samples were evaluated using traditional histology. In addition, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), gene expression profiling analyses, the viability of endometrial cells, and the ability to form epithelial organoids were compared between PSF and VT endometrial biopsies in a subset of samples. The histology and TEM studies demonstrated relatively mild cellular and sub-cellular damage in both cryopreservation protocols which did not affect tissue functionality and the formation of the organoids. Additionally, the cryopreservation methodology did not affect the gene expression profile of the 68 endometrial-receptivity associated genes studied. In conclusion, our findings indicate that although current cryopreservation methodologies need further improvements, they still allow us to achieve acceptable cell viability and functionality, showing promising potential for facilitating the utilization of cryopreserved endometrial tissue samples for research purposes.