Cryopreservation and revival of Hawaiian stony corals using isochoric vitrification. Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • Corals are under siege by both local and global threats, creating a worldwide reef crisis. Cryopreservation is an important intervention measure and a vital component of the modern coral conservation toolkit, but preservation techniques are currently limited to sensitive reproductive materials that can only be obtained a few nights per year during spawning. Here, we report the successful cryopreservation and revival of cm-scale coral fragments via mL-scale isochoric vitrification. We demonstrate coral viability at 24h post-thaw using a calibrated oxygen-uptake respirometry technique, and further show that the method can be applied in a passive, electronics-free configuration. Finally, we detail a complete prototype coral cryopreservation pipeline, which provides a platform for essential next steps in modulating post-thaw stress and initiating long-term growth. These findings pave the way towards an approach that can be rapidly deployed around the world to secure the biological genetic diversity of our vanishing coral reefs.

published proceedings

  • Nat Commun

altmetric score

  • 556.71

author list (cited authors)

  • Powell-Palm, M. J., Henley, E. M., Consiglio, A. N., Lager, C., Chang, B., Perry, R., ... Hagedorn, M.

citation count

  • 2

complete list of authors

  • Powell-Palm, Matthew J||Henley, E Michael||Consiglio, Anthony N||Lager, Claire||Chang, Brooke||Perry, Riley||Fitzgerald, Kendall||Daly, Jonathan||Rubinsky, Boris||Hagedorn, Mary

publication date

  • August 2023